| Melissa Corfe | |
| Fullname: | Melissa Jane Corfe |
| Strokes: | Freestyle, backstroke |
| Club: | Mr. Price Seagulls S.C. |
| Birth Date: | 1986 1, df=yes |
| Birth Place: | Durban, South Africa |
| Height: | 1.750NaN0 |
| Weight: | 610NaN0 |
| Show-Medals: | yes |
Melissa Jane Corfe (born 20 January 1986) is a South African swimmer, who specialised in freestyle and backstroke events.[1] She is a multiple-time South African champion and record holder for her respective events.[2] Corfe represented her nation South Africa at the 2008 Summer Olympics, and has won a total of five medals, including three golds in the women's freestyle (100, 200, and 400 m), at the 2007 All-Africa Games in Algiers, Algeria.[3] [4] She also set two national records (both long and short course), as a member of the South African swimming team, in the freestyle and medley relays, at the 2008 FINA World Short Course Championships in Manchester, England.[5]
Corfe competed for South Africa in five swimming events at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. She crushed three national records and cleared FINA A-standards each in the 200 m freestyle (1:59.76), 400 m freestyle (4:08.70), and 200 m backstroke (2:10.03) at the South African Championships four months earlier in Johannesburg to assure her selection to the nation's Olympic swimming team.[6] [7]
On the first night of the Games, Corfe teamed up with Wendy Trott, Mandy Loots, and Katheryn Meaklim in the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay. Swimming the lead-off leg in heat two, Corfe recorded a fastest split of 55.93 seconds, but the South African foursome had to settle for last place out of fifteen registered nations with a total time of 3:51.14.[8] The following night, in the 400 m freestyle, Corfe headed into the 750-metre turn with a marvelous fourth-place swim in the last of six heats, but faded down the stretch on a sprint challenge to pick up the sixth spot and seventeenth overall in 4:10.54.[9]
On the third night of the prelims, Corfe failed to break a two-minute barrier in the 200 m freestyle. She lost in a close race against fourth-place finalist Paulina Barzycka of Poland by three hundredths of a second (0.03), dropping to sixth place and thirty-third overall in 2:00.95.[10] In her third and final individual event, 200 m backstroke, Corfe cruised to seventh place in heat four with a 2:12.64, just six seconds behind the defending Olympic champion Kirsty Coventry of the neighbouring Zimbabwe, sharing a twenty-second place tie with Ukraine's Kateryna Zubkova in the prelims.[11]
On the last day of the preliminaries, Corfe reunited her South African teammates Loots, Suzaan van Biljon, and Lize-Mari Retief in the 4 × 100 m medley relay. Swimming the backstroke leg, Corfe posted a split of 1:02.62 to give the South African foursome a twelfth-place overall finish in the prelims with a total time of 4:04.20.[12]