South Africa is enormously proud of Tatjana Schoenmaker who earned a silver medal for her breaststroke brilliance at the World Aquatic Championships!
Fukuoka, Japan (27 July, 2023)—Tatjana Schoenmaker has smashed a silver victory at the World Aquatic Championships, making South Africa enormously proud!
This comes after she swam her fastest time since the 2021 Olympics; both a personal and proudly South African victory for the speed queen.
“I was very indecisive as to whether to come to this competition – it’s been a very tough two years for me – so I think swimming my fastest time since the Olympics, I’m slowly getting there,” she shared.
Dipping below her 1:06 ‘plateau’ (which is itself incredibly speedy), Schoenies set herself up for an epic final in the 100m breaststroke.
There, she took silver after hitting accelerate in the second half of the race, securing a time of 1:05.84. She came second to Lithuania’s Olympic star Ruta Meilutytė who beat her by a mere second and some spare change.
Now, all eyes are on today’s heats—the 200m breaststroke. This is the event where Schoenmaker had previously earned gold at the Tokyo Olympics in a historic moment.
“I don’t train for the 100, I train for the 200 so I’m just grateful that my speed is there.
“Obviously the 200 is more my main focus, but I’m very grateful that my 100 time is fast because that helps a lot with the 200. But it is obviously a completely different race.”
In other South African swimming news straight from Japan’s World Aquatic Championships, youngster Michael Houlie has also had eyes miss him in a blink thanks to this swimmer’s noteworthy rush of the starting blocks.
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