Kayla van der Merwe

Kayla van der Merwe (born 15 November 2002) is a British competitive swimmer. At the 2019 World Junior Championships, she won the silver medal in the 50 metre breaststroke and the bronze medal in the 100 metre breaststroke. She won the gold medal in the 100 metre breaststroke and bronze medals in the 200 metre breaststroke and 4×100 metre medley relay at the 2019 European Junior Championships.

Background
Van der Merwe was born on 15 November 2022 in Great Britain. She trains in England and formerly competed for the Winchester City Penguins. She currently competes with the Poole swim club.

2019 European Junior Championships
In July 2019, Van der Merwe competed at the 2019 European Junior Swimming Championships, held in Kazan, Russia at the Palace of Water Sports, where she won the gold medal in the 100 metre breaststroke with a time of 1:07.12, the bronze medal in the 200 metre breaststroke in 2:26.55, a bronze medal in the 4×100 metre medley relay, where she split a 1:07.70 for the breaststroke leg of the relay in the final, and placed 4th in both the 50 metre breaststroke, with a 31.47, and the 4×100 metre mixed medley relay, splitting a 1:07.80 for the breaststroke leg of the relay.

2019 World Junior Championships
At the 2019 World Junior Championships at Danube Arena in Budapest, Hungary, Van der Merwe won the silver medal in the 50 metre breaststroke with a personal best time of 30.91 seconds, which was 0.31 seconds slower than the gold medalist in the event, Benedetta Pilato of Italy. In the 100 metre breaststroke, she won the bronze medal and set a new British age group record with her time of 1:07.06 for the 16-year-old girls age group, finishing just 0.09 seconds behind silver medalist Kaitlyn Dobler of the United States and 0.04 seconds ahead of fourth-place finisher Anastasia Makarova of Russia. For her third and final individual event, Van der Merwe placed fourth in the final of the 200 metre breaststroke in 2:25.27, which was 0.28 seconds behind the bronze medalist in the event Mei Ishihara of Japan.

2019 European Short Course Championships
The 2019 European Short Course Swimming Championships was the swimming competition at which Van der Merwe made her senior international debut. As part of the competition, held at Tollcross International Swimming Centre in December in Glasgow, Scotland, she placed 34th in the prelims heats of the 50 metre breaststroke with a time of 31.36 seconds. In the 100 metre breaststroke prelims heats, she swam a 1:06.83 and placed 24th overall. She placed 11th in the prelims heats of the 200 metre breaststroke with a 2:23.15. For the prelims heats of the 4×50 metre medley relay, she split a 31.01 for the breaststroke leg of the relay in the prelims heats, helping qualify the relay for the final ranking third. In the final, Siobhan-Marie O'Connor substituted in for Van der Merwe and the relay placed fifth in 1:45.65.

2020–2022
At the LEN Swimming Cup stop in Luxembourg in January 2020, Van der Merwe won a gold medal in the 100 metre breaststroke along with Matilde Schrøder of Denmark, who she tied, and a silver medal in the 200 metre breaststroke. In January 2021, Van der Merwe was named to the England Swimming Team in advance of the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

On the first day of the 2022 British Swimming Championships in early April, the selection meet for the 2022 Commonwealth Games, Van der Merwe tied for eleventh-rank in the preliminary heats of the 50 metre breaststroke with a time of 32.61 seconds, qualifying for the b-final. In the evening b-final she placed third, eleventh overall, with a time of 32.39 seconds. For the 200 metre breaststroke prelims heats on day two, she decided not to compete. The sixth and final day, she swam a 1:09.22 in the prelims heats of the 100 metre breaststroke, qualifying for the final ranking fourth. She swam a 1:08.83 in the final to place fourth, finishing over four-tenths of a second ahead of fifth-place finisher Abbie Wood and 1.31 seconds behind first-place finisher Kara Hanlon. In July, at the 2022 British Summer Swimming Championships, she improved upon her time and placing in the 50 metre breaststroke from April, winning the bronze medal with a time of 32.31 seconds.

2023
At the 2023 Australian Swimming Trials in Melbourne, Australia, Van der Merwe ranked sixth in the preliminaries of the 100 metre breaststroke on day two with a 1:10.03 and qualified for the evening final. She went on to place second in the b-final with a time of 1:09.40.

International championships

 * Van der Merwe swam only in the prelims heats.

Short course metres (25 m pool)
Legend: h – heat

Awards and honours

 * Swim England, Talent Athlete of the Year (Swimming): 2019