Just after 21:00 on 1 August in the evening could be a red-letter sports day for South African when Tatjana (Schoenmaker) Smith dives into the pool to compete in the 200m-breaststroke at the Paris Olympics.
If she wins, the Tuks swimmer will be the second South African athlete to win gold in the same event at two consecutive Olympic Games. Caster Semenya won the 800 metres at the 2012 London Games and in 2016 at the Rio Games.
Smith has the proverbial ‘Big Match Temperament’, better known as just BMT. Or, to put it another way, when the going gets tough, Smith gets going. Her results are proof. Since 2018, she has medalled at every major event she has competed in.
Her gold medal heroics include winning the 200m breaststroke during the Tokyo Olympic Games, the 2022 World Championships, the 2018 and 2022 Commonwealth Games and the 2019 World University Games. The Tuks swimmer also set a world record during the Tokyo Games. Last year, she was the first South African female swimmer to win a world-long course swimming title.
When talking to TuksSwimming head coach Rocco Meiring, he emphasised that it might be foolish to speculate what could or could not happen during the Paris Olympics. Referring to an article that appeared in SwimSwam last month.
“This summer, the Olympic Games will take place in Paris. And, as usual, there is a lot of expectation for outstanding performances, legendary races and, of course, world records. Many will try to guess who the winners and medallists of the swimming events will be. Obviously, it is tough to predict who they will be,” Daniel Takata wrote for SwimSwam.
Using Extreme Value Theory (EVT) and the extreme performances of athletes (fastest times in the world), SwimSwam took the times of the 100 fastest performers in each year, in each event since 1990, to predict the estimated fastest time this year in each event. According to this formula, the winning time in Paris for the women’s 200m breaststroke could be 2:18.63.
To put this in perspective, last year Russia’s Evgenia Chikunova set a world record for swimming a time of 2:17.95. Smith’s world record time in 2021 was 2:18.95. So far this year, Smith is the fastest, having swam 2:19.01.
Meiring expects Chikunova to compete at the Paris Games.
“There is no official confirmation about this, but there are strong rumours that she will be in Paris. I have Tatjana to prepare herself to swim against the Russians. Tatjana will have her work cut out if she wants to win gold in the 200m-breaststroke again,” Meiring explained.
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