Tatjana Smith wants younger swimmers to get more support

She is no longer a competitive swimmer, but Tatjana Smith insists she’s not done with swimming, and she wants to ensure the next generation of South African stars are able to follow an easier path than she had to take to reach the top.

After returning home on Tuesday from the Olympic Games in Paris, where she led the national team’s six-medal haul with gold and silver in breaststroke events, Smith confirmed she had retired from competing in the pool.

However, as the country’s most decorated Olympian, with four career medals, she felt she could continue to play an important role outside the pool.

The former world champion admitted she had faced struggles in climbing to the pinnacle of her sport, and she hoped younger South African swimmers would receive more support.

‘Make it better’

“I’m here to have a voice for athletes, and I will try to represent them because I think there’s a lot we can learn from each other in how we can grow and make it better,” Smith said after being welcomed home by hundreds of fans at OR Tambo International.

“I’m very grateful to have been able to win gold medals, but first I had to face a lot of things to get there, and I think we can avoid a lot of things for future athletes to achieve amazing things.”

She wasn’t sure exactly how she could make a contribution, but Smith said she was eager to impart her knowledge in an attempt to pave a smoother road for her potential successors.

“As athletes I feel we’ve learned so much and we’ve gone through so much that we’ve got to share. To keep it for myself would be selfish,” she said.

“I definitely want to share my experience so that we can either prevent others from experiencing the same, or help them to get to that level where they can have similar experiences.”

Sports minister Gayton McKenzie said he hoped Smith would help find young talent while motivating the sport’s rising stars.

“She might have retired from professional swimming but she’s not retiring from helping us look for other Tatjanas around South Africa,” McKenzie said.

Double the squad

McKenzie also made a bold claim, committing to ensuring the national Olympic team would double in size at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.

While the SA squad consisted of around 140 athletes in Paris – one of the biggest teams the country has sent to the quadrennial Games – he wanted a team of more than 300 athletes in Los Angeles.

He admitted a lot of work needed to be done, however, and it would require more development and funding.

“We as South Africans have a big responsibility to make sure we take no less than 300 Olympians to the next Olympic event in 2028,” McKenzie said.

“It’s a promise I’m making here, that we are going to find Tatjanas in the rural areas.”