Victory for South Africa's Cameron Van Der Burgh over 50m breaststroke in 27.74sec at the All-Africa Games in Alergia ended in controversy when his country's sports minister stormed away from the medal ceremony in protest after organisers played a version of the national anthem that dated back to the dark days of apartheid.

Ncgonde Balfour, South African minister for sport and recreation, was outraged when he detected the error in the anthem being aired after presenting Van Der Burgh with his gold medal and fellow South African, Thabang Moeketsane, on 28.89, with the silver.

Organisers had played an incomplete version of the anthem, according to South Africa swimming team manager Velan Marimuthu.

The anthem compromises four sections and the organisers only played the last two, which formed the anthem before the abolition of the apartheid system, said the manager.

"After the apartheid was abolished, we did not discard the old national anthem and added another two sections to form the new one," he told the media at the Games. "But today they only played the last two sections of the anthem, and this was a disrespect to our sports minister."

It was the latest incident to draw criticism of organisers of the Games. Former Secretary of the Supreme Council for Sports in Africa Awoture Eleyae described the event as a "shambles", telling the media: "They are not prepared at all, it is just now that they are getting started with their organisation. They probably thought that it is still the same games they hosted in 1978. We cannot even make any comparison with the 2003 Games, there is no basis. Algiers is chaotic. Obviously they were not expecting this huge turn out of countries, we have 52 here present."

Beyond the failings of organisers, it was another successful day for South Africa, George Du Rand taking the 200m backstroke in 2:02.69, and the South African women's quartet claimed the 4x100m freestyle title in 3:56.05.

US-based Zimbabwean Kirsty Coventry claimed two more crowns, in 1:01.28 over 100m backstroke and 8:43.89 over 800m freestyle.

Salim Iles, of Algeria, claimed the 100m freestyle in a Games record of 49.38, ahead of teammate Nabil Kebbab, on 49.82, with US-based David Dunford (and not brother, Jason, as originally reported - many thanks to Joseph Kimani, who sent just about the most polite note of correction I've ever received). Jason dipped below 50sec at the world championships at Melbourne in March.