{"id":10234,"date":"2024-08-02T07:46:16","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T05:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/?p=10234"},"modified":"2024-08-02T07:46:18","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T05:46:18","slug":"smith-secures-silver-to-end-career-on-a-high-coetze-breaks-15-year-old-african-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/?p=10234","title":{"rendered":"Smith secures silver to end career on a high; Coetz\u00e9 breaks 15-year-old African record"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PRESS RELEASE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith secures silver to end career on a high; Coetz\u00e9 breaks 15-year-old African record<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1 August 2024 \u2013 Tatjana Smith wrapped up her campaign at the Olympic Games in Paris with a silver medal in the 200m breaststroke on Thursday night to add to the 100m breaststroke gold she claimed on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heading in as the defending champion after claiming 200m gold in Tokyo three years ago, Smith came up against an inspired Kate Douglass of the USA, who took the win in an Americas record time of 2:19.24 with Smith coming in second in 2:19.60.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 27-year-old was thrilled with the silver and said afterwards: \u201cIt was incredible. That\u2019s what sport is about \u2013 it\u2019s that battle. Obviously everybody wants to touch the wall first but I\u2019m just as happy to get the silver medal because I love that competitiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing to now celebrate the new champion. She has so much more to come. She wasn\u2019t in Tokyo so I never got to race an Olympic final with her so I think that was just exciting on its own and to end off my career with a big fight was so worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m so grateful that I still get to walk away with a medal. I\u2019m walking away from the Olympics with two medals, I\u2019m a double Olympian so I can\u2019t complain,\u201d added Smith, who confirmed she is now retiring from swimming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’m officially done. It’s a relief, but I definitely know I’m probably, tomorrow, going to miss it already. It’s been a big part of my life, it’s 22 years that I’ve been swimming and it’s been a big part of my family’s life and everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kaylene Corbett finished in seventh place in the same 200m breaststroke final in a time of 2:24.46 and has already set her sights on the LA Olympics in 2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot to improve on from that race. Sometimes sport just is sport and you don’t get everything right in a race, so I\u2019m definitely a little bit disappointed in that race, but at the same time you can’t be disappointed because this is where God placed you tonight and I know there’s a blessing waiting for me at the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI definitely saw Tatjana battle it out with Kate, but you know that Tatiana doesn’t give up and she’s always fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the two of us had some serious challenges coming off of Tokyo into 2024. We had different challenges, but I can definitely speak for myself in this regard that I\u2019m a much stronger person in comparison to 2021 in Tokyo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that this time around I just feel very proud of myself in what I’ve achieved and being able to come to another Olympic Games. I mean, if I had to tell eight-year-old Kaylene that she’s a double Olympian and she made two finals and she\u2019s top eight in the world, that’s incredible, so I’m very happy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also in action on Thursday night was Pieter Coetz\u00e9 who finished seventh in the 200m backstroke final. While disappointed not to be among the medals, the 20-year-old did find some consolation in breaking the South African and African record that has been held by George du Rand since the 2009 World Championships in Rome. Coetz\u00e9 finished in 1:55.60 to take .25 of a second off the 15-year-old mark in the race that was won by Hungary\u2019s Hubert Kos in 1:54.26. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’m thankful for how it played out and to go PB is always good, so I can\u2019t be comparing myself to the other guys too much, but a medal would have been nice,\u201d said Coetz\u00e9 afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’m very happy with that, and the fact that I’m faster than I’ve ever been is a great thing. So I’m just really thankful that I got this experience. I can’t be sad about not getting a medal because so many people like Ryan Murphy couldn’t even make the final, so this game is tough and it can go either way in any race you swim,\u201d added Coetz\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier in the day, Matthew Sates finished sixth in his 200m individual medley heat in a time of 2:04.01 and did not progress to the evening semifinal after placing 21st<\/sup> overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sates will be back in action on Friday morning in the heats of the 100m butterfly along with four-time Olympic medallist Chad le Clos. Both Sates and Le Clos are scheduled to swim in heat 2 at 11.03am. Rebecca Meder will take to the blocks in heat 4 of the women\u2019s 200m individual medley at 11.30am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– ENDS –<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PRESS RELEASE Smith secures silver to end career on a high; Coetz\u00e9 breaks 15-year-old African record 1 August 2024 \u2013 Tatjana Smith wrapped up her…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10234"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10235,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10234\/revisions\/10235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kznaquatics.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}