She won’t be able to match her compatriot’s feat from Atlanta 1996 of being the only woman to win the breaststroke double at an Olympics.īut making the podium has ended a long drought for SA women’s swimming this millennium. Schoenmaker is the first SA woman to win a Games swimming medal since Penny Heyns at Sydney 2000. “I swam a in the heats so I was already happy. I was not ranked in medal position so walking out with a medal already is amazing,” said Schoenmaker, who went into this event seeded fourth. “At the end I saw she was ahead and I just knew like I’m so I can’t do this but I know I gave my best. “Coming back I was a little more tired, especially at the end, I was dying a little,” said Schoenmaker, adding she could see King on the one side, but not Jacoby on the other. Her 1:05.07 on Monday was the fastest time of the semifinals. The South African is well primed to win two medals at this showpiece, going into the 200m breaststroke heats on Wednesday as the favourite.īut had Schoenmaker replicated the 1:04.82 Olympic record she had clocked in the heats on Sunday, she would have taken gold on Tuesday morning. Schoenmaker touched in 1min 05.22sec - her slowest time in her three swims at these Games - to finish behind American teenager Lydia Jacoby in 1:04.95.ĭefending champion Lilly King of the US was third in 1:05.54. Using guile, psychology and good wave selection, Buitendag knocked out Australia’s third seed Stephanie Gilmore in the third round and Portugal’s No.8 seed Yolanda Hopkins in the quarterfinals. Just more than two hours later unheralded surfer Bianca Buitendag upstaged No.2 seed Caroline Marks of the US to reach the final where she will fight the other American, top seed Carissa Moore, for gold later in the day.ĭavid slew Goliath, but the 27-year-old from George, who was seeded 17th in a field of 20, has had to topple a series of giants to reach the podium of a sport making its Olympic debut in Japan. On Tuesday, the athlete bagged a silver medal in the women’s 100m breaststroke final.Swimmer Tatjana Schoenmaker kicked off an all-women two-medal haul for Team SA on Tuesday morning, taking silver in the women’s 100m breaststroke at the Tokyo Olympics. So I’ve exceeded, or God has exceeded, all my expectations so I couldn’t be happier,” said an elated Schoenmaker. That’s the thing I’ve always believed in. “This is my first Olympics so for me to get a lane into the final, then everyone stands a chance. Schoenmaker was the top seed in the 200m breaststroke going into the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and upon achieving this momentous feat she said: “I would never have even thought!”. She is a true ambassador of the nation and a living example that hard work and dedication truly pay off,” Mthethwa said in a statement. “She set the pace from the onset of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics by becoming the first female South African swimmer to win an Olympic medal in 21 years. Mthethwa said South Africa is incredibly proud of Schoenmaker who has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that “South Africa is indeed a nation of winners”. She is the 10th South African to have won multiple medals at single Games, and the fourth since readmission, after Penny Heyns, Roland Schoeman at the Athens 2004 games, and Chad Le Clos in London 2012 and Rio 2016. With a two minute 18.95 second mark, Schoenmaker has achieved the first individual world record of this gala. The 24-year-old South African smashed the 2:19.11 world record held by Denmark’s Rikke Moller Pedersen since 2013. Sport, Arts and Culture Minister, Nathi Mthethwa, has congratulated Tatjana Schoenmaker for scooping South Africa’s first gold medal of the Tokyo Games in the women’s 200m breaststroke in a world record on Friday morning.
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