‘I’m back’: Tatjana Smith targets 50m sprint at 2028 Olympic Games

Four-time Olympic medallist Tatjana Smith has set her sights on a return to the multi-sport Games as she prepares to make her comeback to competitive swimming this week.

Smith, who retired after the 2024 Olympics in Paris, had entered the SA Short Course Championships in Pietermaritzburg starting on Thursday where she was expected to turn out in the 50m, 100m and 200m breaststroke events.

However, the 29-year-old breaststroke specialist said her main focus over the next couple of years would not be the 100m or 200m events in which she had earned four Olympic medals between 2021 and 2024.

Instead, with the 50m breaststroke being introduced to the programme for the first time at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, she was concentrating on the sprint distance.

“The 50m is different. One length, no turn, no room to settle. Almost no time to recover if the start, pull-out, breakout or touch goes wrong. Everything happens now, and it scares me but it also excites me,” Smith said in a social media post.

Writing new history

Having achieved two gold and two silver medals at previous editions of the Olympics, Smith was already South Africa’s most decorated Olympian (while fellow swimmer Chad le Clos also had four career medals, his bag included one gold and three silver).

And if she could return to the podium in Los Angeles, Smith would become the first SA athlete in any sport to secure five podium places at the prestigious quadrennial showpiece.

“I’m choosing a new event that has no history but I’ll try and write new history,” said the former 200m world record holder.

But she insisted she was not getting ahead of herself, admitting she had a lot of work ahead of her to put herself in contention against younger opponents.

“LA 2028 is the goal. It is not a promise. I still have to build a race, qualify and earn my spot back on those blocks,” said Smith, who had moved from Pretoria to Stellenbosch and was working with a new coach.

“I don’t know how the story ends but I know I want to find out. The work starts here… I don’t know, how do I say it? I’m back.”