Tatjana Smith (nee Schoenmaker) won Team South Africa’s first gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics on Monday night, coming from behind to win the women’s 100m breaststroke final.
Tatjana, who won the silver medal in this race at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, had to catch up after China’s Tang Qianting flew out of the blocks.
Tang ran the first 50m in 29.94 seconds, while Tatjana took 30.62 seconds to turn. Mona McSharry of Ireland was also flying in lane two and appeared to have stolen the race when she finished strongly.
Tatjana, the 200m breaststroke gold medallist from Tokyo, powered her way up the field and finished the race near-perfectly. She touched the wall ahead of second-placed Tang, who appeared to be running out of puff near the end of the race. Mona eventually finished third.
Tatjana’s time of 1:05.28 was slower than her heat time, but she was not concerned because she won the gold medal. Tatjana now has the opportunity to compete for another medal in the 200m breaststroke, an event that put her on the Olympic map after Tokyo.
Meanwhile, in the men’s 100m backstroke final, Pieter Coetze of South Africa finished fifth in 52.58 seconds after a closely contested race.
Pieter finished joint second in the semi-finals, breaking the African record he set at the SA Championships in Gqeberha earlier this year.
However, Thomas Ceccon delivered Italy’s second swimming gold medal at the Paris Games.
Thomas won in 52.00 seconds, with China’s Xu Jiayu finishing 0.32 seconds behind in silver and Ryan Murphy of the USA in bronze.
First published on Cape Town ETC
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