体坛英语新闻：Van der Burgh thanks Alex Dale Oen for his gold medal

LONDON, July 29 (Xinhua) -- South Africa's Cameron van der Burgh became the second world record breaker on Sunday night as he swam 58.46 seconds to win the gold medal in the men's 100 meter breaststroke.

However, Van der Burgh did not immediately expressed his joy at winning the medal, and instead explained that part of the responsibility for his triumph belonged to his friend, the Norwegian swimmer, Alexander Dale Oen.

"Alex helped me a lot when I was in Norway, he took me under his wing," said Van der Burgh, who had been a close friend to the 2011 world champion.

"He helped become who I am today, when I touched the wall and got the gold medal; I turned over and looked up to heaven. I feel he helped me because we had been so close. When someone has been in your life, they leave something there. Alex has had some influence on my speed," he added.

Van der Burgh's medal made him the first South African to win individual gold medal in the pool.

"From a young age, we all dream of becoming an Olympic champion. I had to work hard to concentrate and even hard to turn off my twitter before to stop being overwhelmed by messages," he said of his pre-race preparation.

Looking further back, he said that there had also been alterations in triaining.

"Previously I had trained in a 25 meter pool, we have made a lot of changes, some that worked and some that didn't, so we kept the good ones," said Van der Burgh.