The field is headed by SA Swimmer of the Year Cameron van der Burgh and teenage prodigy Chad le Clos.

  Around 230 competitors will take part in the meet at the Kings Park Pool, including more than 20 foreign swimmers — among them Zimbabwe’s double Olympic gold medallist Kirsty Coventry.

  “We’re just six months away from London and it’s a very important time for us as Swimming South Africa [SSA],” said Dean Price, the high performance manager for SSA.

  “We have launched a campaign to ensure that when we go to the Olympics, we come back as the country’s premier sport.

  “This meeting is a chance for those that often don’t travel overseas to compete and have a shot at getting to the Olympics.”  Despite the appearance of Van der Burgh and Le Clos, there is bound to be plenty of focus on South Africa’s fringe swimmers, including Suzaan van Biljon, Riaan Schoeman, Karin Prinsloo, Mandy Loots and Gerhard Zandberg.

  Those swimmers have yet to satisfy the first part of a stringent SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) policy that requires them to record an Olympic A-standard time twice during a 10-month period, including once at the national trials in April.

  Nine swimmers have already met the qualifying standard, including Van der Burgh, Le Clos, Gideon Louw, Kathryn Meaklim and Vanessa Mohr, who will all be in Durban this weekend.

  Those that have achieved qualifying times but are absent from the east coast city are Darian Townsend, Sebastian Rossouw, Graeme Moore and Wendy Trott.

  “The A-standard times have taken a huge jump between 2008 and 2012,” Price said.

  “The last Olympics had around 1,600 competitors and this time around the International Olympic Committee (IOC) wants to bring the numbers down, mainly due to financial constraints.

  “So they want to have the really top athletes there and I think the new number is around 1,000 — so 600 less from the last Games.”  Price said that SSA expected to see “at least five or six A-times here this week”.

  Van der Burgh, who will compete in the 50 metres, 100m and 200m breaststroke events on Sunday, said he was in Durban to support young SA swimmers.

  “I think it is important to be here for the younger guys with Olympic dreams,” said Van der Burgh, a short course world record holder.

  “I can remember when I was younger, it was always nice to watch the other guys, the more senior ones, what they did in the warm-ups, in the race itself, how they did the turns, so that you could learn from them. So being here is always good.”