Chronicle Editor
CAPE TOWN — TATJANA Schoenmaker won South Africa’s 11th gold medal at the Olympic Games since re-admission in 1992 with a world-record performance in the women’s 200 metres breaststroke on Friday.
The 24-year-old from Pretoria was second behind American Lilly King for the first 100 metres, but remained patient to storm to victory in the last 50m in a new world record of two minutes 18.95 seconds (2:18.95). That beat the previous mark of 2:19.11, set by Rikke Moller Pedersen in 2013.
Schoenmaker follows in the footsteps of another South African breaststroke legend, Penny Heyns, who took top spot in the 200m at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics — where the latter also won gold in the 100m.
Friday’s triumph is in addition to Schoenmaker’s silver medal in the 100m breaststroke earlier in the week.
Marathon star Josia Thugwane was the first South African gold medal in the post-apartheid era at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and he was backed up by Heyns’ double gold in the breaststroke.
South Africa’s next gold medal came at the 2004 Athens Olympics, where the 4x100m freestyle relay quartet of Lyndon Ferns, Ryk Neethling, Roland Schoeman and Darian Townsend raised the flag.
Mzansi had to wait until the 2012 London Games to hear Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika at the Olympics again, with rowing squad Sizwe Ndlovu, Matthew Brittain, John Smith and James Thompson took the honours in the men’s lightweight four competition. There were three more golds in the British capital – swimmers Cameron van der Burgh (100m breaststroke) and Chad le Clos (200m butterfly), and Caster Semenya in the 800m on the athletics track.
Semenya secured her second 800m gold at Rio 2016, where athletics contributed gold in the shape of Wayde van Niekerk, who set that incredible world record of 43.03 seconds from lane eight in the 400m. — BBC Sport
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