GLASGOW(AFP) – South Africa’s Olympic champion Chad le Clos survived a freak accident to retain his Commonwealth Game 200m butterfly title on Saturday in a Games record of 1min 55:07sec.

Grant Irvine took silver for Australia, while South Africa also claimed bronze thanks to Sebastien Rousseau.

Le Clos appeared to ease through the first 150 metres before turning on the afterburners and speeding past the rest of the field in the final 50 metres.

“It all went to plan. I said to (coach) Graham (Hill) it would probably take a 1min 55sec to win, but it wasn’t about time it was about finishing first.

“I was just trying to take it comfortable until the 150 mark. I knew I could hit it hard on the las turn as I normally do.”

The biggest scare for Le Clos had come out of the pool as he revealed he twisted his ankle when he slipped coming off his bus back to the athletes’ village on Friday night, which put his participation in the rest of the Games at risk.

Chad le Clos: swimming butterfly gold medalist

“Last night I slipped off the best, so I was a bit worried, my ankle was a bit swollen.

“It wasn’t too bad, so I just iced it. This morning it was quite bad in the heats so I was a bit worried, but we had 10 hours to strap it up and needle it a little bit so thanks to the physios.”

Le Clos remains on course for seven medals at the meet after taking bronze in the 50m butterfly and silver in the 4x100m freestyle relay on Friday.

And he is now targetting gold in the 200m individual medley on Tuesday.

“I didn’t have such great preparation coming into this and so far I’ve still done two personal bests in the 50m butterfly and 100m freestyle which were both really good times for me.

“I have the 200IM when I’ll be up against Thomas Fraser-Holmes who won the 100m free, so I don’t want to say I can win but I might.”