After a second consecutive Olympic experience where she reached the podium in both of her events, Tatjana Smith is ready to move on from competitive swimming.
The 27-year-old South African said the final of the women’s 200 breaststroke would be the last swim of her career after the prelims on Wednesday, and she closed this chapter of her life by winning her fourth Olympic medal.
The Tokyo Olympic champion in the 200 breast, Smith (née Schoenmaker) won silver on Thursday night in Paris, clocking 2:19.60 to finish as the runner-up to American Kate Douglass (2:19.24).
Smith still owns the Olympic Record (and former world record) of 2:18.95 set three years ago.
After winning gold in Tokyo, Smith didn’t get back under 2:20 in the 200 breast until this year, firing off a time of 2:19.01 at the South African Championships in April.
Earlier in the competition in Paris, she won gold in the 100 breast, making her finishes in the two events the opposite of what happened in Tokyo when she was the gold medalist in the 200 and the runner-up in the 100.
The four medals make Smith the most decorated South African Olympian in history, matching Chad Le Clos‘ tally of four medals, but with two golds compared to Le Clos’ one.
Speaking to the South African outlet Sunday Times, Smith said she’s in a “better space” than she was in Tokyo regarding swimming and the mental side of the sport after putting so much pressure on herself back then, but is ready to turn the page.
“It’s not my identity and it’s not who I am, it’s just what I do. There’s life after swimming as well.
“I’m not going to beat myself up because of this. I’m trying to enjoy it as much as I can. I probably won’t be swimming any longer. I have two more races to go and then I’m done,” she said after the 200 breast prelims.
Smith reaffirmed her retirement after the final of the 200 breast.
Smith first burst onto the major international stage in 2018, winning double breaststroke gold at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. She claimed silver in the 200 breast at the 2019 World Championships, and then reached new heights in Tokyo by becoming Olympic champion in the 200 and the silver medalist in the 100 breast.
After taking a bit of a hiatus from high-level competition post-Tokyo, resurfacing for the 2022 Commonwealth Games and repeating as the 200 breast champion and winning silver in the 100 breast, she won her first and only world title in the 200 breast at the 2023 World Championships in Fukuoka.
She also won the World University Games title in the 100 and 200 breast in 2019, and when she won 200-meter gold in Fukuoka, she became the first swimmer since 1992 to hold the Olympic, LC World Championship and World University Games gold medals in the same event.
Her victory in Tokyo also made her the first South African woman to win swimming gold at the Olympics since Penny Heyns in 1996.
