Tatjana Schoenmaker is South Africa’s first athlete to clock in a world record at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Tatjana Schoenmaker reacts to Olympic world record
In fact, the 24-year-old is the fist TeamSA gold medalist at the competition. On Friday, the swimmer went head-to-head with US favourites Lily King and Annie Lazor in the 200-metre breaststroke final and much to the world’s disbelief, not only did she come in first-place, but Schoenmaker broke an eight-year world record when she touched the wall at 02:18.95.
The Olympic world record was previously held by Denmark’s Rikke Moller Pedersen who set the timer at 02:19 during the 2013 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.
Reacting to the historic feat, Schoenmaker said:
“When I first saw my time, I saw 02:19 [King’s time], and didn’t know that wasn’t my time. 02:19 has been in the record books for so long. I’m just really grateful. It really hasn’t sunk in yet. The whole process went really quick. It’ll probably kick in when I get home,” she said.
Five things you didn’t know about Schoenmaker
Following this amazing feat, the entire nation will be keen to know more about the 24-year-old.
We did some digging and find out these cool facts about Schoenmaker:
She’s a Commonwealth Games champion
Before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Schoenmaker had already made history at the Commonwealth Games. At the age of 20, the swimmer became the first South African woman to earn gold medals at the 2018 Commonwealth Games since the country was reintroduced to the competition, setting African records in the 100m breast (01:06.41) and 200m breast (02:22.02).
She is a TUKS graduate
While her natural-born talents are exercised in the pools, Schoenmaker is an accomplished ‘smart-pants’ too. The 24-year-old is a Financial Science graduate at the University of Pretoria. As a TUKS student, Schoenmaker also bagged a South African national record when she competed in the semifinals of the 2019 World University Games.
She went on to win the 100m breast (01:06:42) and the 200m breast (02:22:92) that year.
She literally trains everyday, except Sundays
Hard work truly pays off and it is all shown in the numbers she clocks in with her highly intensive training regimen. The 24-year-old trains six days a week and takes Sunday off.
In numbers, her training schedule looks like this:
- Trains six days a week with Sunday being an off day
- 48 weeks per year – only three or four weeks off a year
- nine swim sessions a week
- swims an average of five – 7km per swim session
- On double session days she swims +/- 11–14 kms a day
- three gym sessions a week for 1 hr and 15 min each session
She’s started swimming at a very young age
According to her official sponsor, Ford, Schoenmaker started swimming when she was five years old. At the time, it was for water-safety purposes.
It would seem that the breaststroke specialist fell in love with the pools at a very young age. By the age of eight, she was representing her primary school’s swimming club.
Schoenmaker started swimming professionally at 14 years old.
She’s dating fellow swimmer Ruan Rus
The Olympic world record-holder is taken. Based on her social media posts, it’s apparent that Schoenmaker is in a romantic relationship with fellow swimmer Ruan Rus.
