Le Clos strikes butterfly double in Berlin, Sates continues World Cup winning ways

South Africa's Chad le Clos and Matthew Sates clinched gold medals in the opening leg of the FINA Swimming World Cup in Berlin.

Le Clos went back to his old winning ways after a disappointing season, which saw him clinch only one silver Commonwealth Games.

On Friday in the 100m butterfly, Le Clos turned back the time to swim the tenth fastest swim of all time.

Le Clos touched the wall first in 48.58, just off the FINA Swimming World Cup record of 48.48 set by Evgenii Korotyshkin in 2009.

On Saturday evening, Le Clos continued his fine form in Berlin with a win in the 200m butterfly, touching the wall in 1:49.62.

"I'm absolutely over the moon. I couldn't have asked for a better start. It was very important for me to get the win tonight," Le Clos said on FINA's website.

"The time wasn't important; I couldn't really care about the time. I just wanted to win, bad. I've taken a lot of losses lately and I'm done with that now."

???? Chad Le Clos about his comeback to competitions after two difficult years and now "I got myself mentally back, I am a killer again"??100??200 Butterfly at the #SWC2022 pic.twitter.com/MSqlMXvfHY

Meanwhile, Sates got his title defence off to a stellar start with a gold in the 400m freestyle.

The 19-year-old was the top male swimmer of the 2021 series and won the 400 freestyle in Berlin with a 3:36.30, improving his best times and moving up to 13th all-time with a new African record.

"This is my favourite pool in the world. This race means a lot to me," said Sates.

"Coming in as 2021 overall Swimming World Cup champ and winning my first race of the 2022 short course season, I was pretty nervous coming into this, knowing that this race would be the determining factor.

"I went faster than last year; a year ago I