Gold medallist Tatjana Smith (centre) of South Africa celebrates on the podium with silver medallist Qianting Tang (left) of China and bronze medallist Mona Mc Sharry of Ireland. Picture: REUTERS, Evgenia Novozhenina
Tatjana Smith (nee Schoenmaker) came from behind to win Team South Africa’s first gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games when she triumphed in the women’s 100m breaststroke final on Monday night.
Smith, who won the silver medal in this race at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, had to make up ground after China’s Tang Qianting flew off the starting blocks.
Qianting blitzed the first 50m in just 29.94 seconds, while Smith made the turn in 30.62 seconds. Ireland’s Mona McSharry was also flying in lane two and looked like stealing it at the end when she finished strongly.
However, Smith, the 200m breaststroke gold medallist from Tokyo, powered her way up the field and had a near perfect finish to the race. She touched the wall ahead of the second-placed Qianting, who looked like she was running out of puff towards the end of the race. McSharry eventually finished third.
Smith’s time of 1:05.28 was slower than her efforts in the heats, but she won’t worry after winning the gold medal. Now Smith has a chance to go for another medal in the 200m breaststroke, an event which put her on the Olympics map after Tokyo.
Meanwhile, in the men’s 100m backstroke final, SA’s Pieter Coetze finished fifth in 52.58 after a hotly contested race.
Coetze finished joint-second in the semi-finals, bettering the African record he set at the SA championships in Gqeberha earlier this year.
However, Thomas Ceccon delivered the gold for Italy, their second swimming gold of the Paris Games.
Ceccon won with a time of 52.00 seconds with China's Xu Jiayu 0.32sec behind, taking the silver, and Ryan Murphy of the USA in bronze.
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