South Africa: Swimmer Tatjana Smith won the Heat-4 in the Women’s 100m Breaststroke with a time of 1:05:00, from where she advanced to the semi-finals at Paris Olympics 2024.
She got her Olympic Games off to a great start on Sunday, and booked her place in the women’s 100m breaststroke semi-finals. Smith topped the timesheets in the Sunday morning heats at the Paris Le Defense Arena in the City of Love.
The 2020 gold medallist won heat-4 and stopped the clock at 1:05:00 flat. When the heats concluded, Smith completed her stroke comfortably and the fastest, over the six-tenths ahead of China’s Tang Qianting.
Notably, the world record holder Lilly King of the USA was fifth fastest with a 1:06:10 time. The native of Johannesburg will swim in the semi-finals at 21:00 on Sunday night. The 200m breaststroke event, will begin on Wednesday, which is Smith’s favourite.
Tatjana Smith took South Africa’s first gold of the Paris Olympics on Monday and added the 100 metres breaststroke title to the 200m. The swimmer won at Tokyo 2021 under her maiden name ‘Schoenmaker’.
Next to her is China’s world champion, Tang Qianting, who took the silver medal, and Mona McSharry from Ireland, who looked stunned. Their tears flowed down after an extraordinary three-way battle for bronze.
Meanwhile, in the men’s 100m backstroke final, South Africa’s Pieter Coetze finished the fifth in 52.58 after a hotly contested race. Coetze finished the joint-second in the semi-finals, while bettering the African record that he set at the South African Championships in Gqeberha, earlier in the year 2024.
Further in the competition, Thomas Ceccon delivered the gold for Italy, being the second swimming gold of the Paris Games. Ceccon won with a time of 52 seconds with China’s Xu Jiayu 0.32 seconds behind, grabbing the silver and Ryan Murphy of the USA in bronze.
On her achievement, Smith expressed that she is grateful to be swimming much faster times. She expressed, “This is my fastest time since Tokyo but I think most of all, it’s not even for me anymore or about the time. It’s just really enjoying the experience and I’m having so much more fun.”
After the race she said that she’s excited, she further added to her words, “I’m is glad to have a lane in the final. Obviously, lane four is a really nice lane. It’s blessing but, also sometimes not… you never know what to expect so if you have a lane, you have a chance.”