South Africa’s Olympic hero Tatjana Schoenmaker swam gallantly but was unable to propel the 4x100m medley relay team into the next round in Tokyo on Friday.
SA's women finished seventh in their heat during the 4x100m relay medley with a time of 4:03:02. Australia won Heat 1 with a 3:55:39 time, 7.63 seconds ahead of South Africa.
Schoenmaker earlier smashed the world 200m breaststroke record, winning the country's first gold medal with a time of 2:18.95.
Following Schoenmaker's heroics, veteran freestyle swimmer Brad Tandy bombed out of the men's 50m freestyle event after failing to make the semi-finals.
Tandy finished 6th in his heat, swimming in lane eight, where he made a time of 22:22.
American Caeleb Dressel, who swam in Tandy's heat 10, qualified with the fastest time of 21:32, followed by France's Florent Manaudou (21:65) and Greek Kristian Gkolomeev (21:66).
However, there was some further good news for SA in the pool as Emma Chelius qualified for the semi-finals after finishing third in her women's 50m freestyle heat with a 24.65 swim, which placed her 11th fastest among the list of qualifiers.