A tough few days of competition at the 29th Summer Universiade in Taipei, Taiwan, had a silver lining as Tuks student Tatjana Schoenmaker bagged the first medal for Team South Africa in the women’s 200-metre breaststroke final.
The silver medallist’s competition schedule started earlier this week when she went for glory in the women’s 100-metre breaststroke event, and after finishing top two in both her qualifying heat and semi-final round, where she swam a time of 1min 07.77sec, she was beaten into fourth with a time of 1:07.44.
Schoenmaker then had a score to settle in the 200m breaststroke event, and she yet again qualified for the semi-final with the second-fastest time.
Japanese swimmer Kanako Watanabe narrowly edged out Schoenmaker in the final with a time of 2:24.15 as Schoenmaker finished in a time of 2:24.61 to claim the first 29th Summer Universiade medal for Team South Africa.
Earlier this year, Schoenmaker had become the first South African woman in three years to qualify for a major international championship, this in the Fina World Championships that took place in Budapest last month, but she opted to concentrate instead on the World Student Games.
Shortly after Schoenmaker’s achievement, South Africa’s sprinter and fellow University of Pretoria student, Thando Roto, bagged the country’s second silver medal in the men’s 100m final.
Roto only fell short of gold by 0.02sec, with a time of 10.24sec behind Chinese Taipei’s Yang Chun-Han, who had the support of his home crowd. South African athletes continue to do well in the 100m event at the Universiade, with Akani Simbine currently holding the Universiade record of 9.97 at the games.
Twenty-two-year-old Roto qualified in the first round of the men’s 100m with a time of 10.51, and in round two at 10.35. He just got better in the final, and admits he could have come out better on the starting blocks. But now he has a silver medal to add to his slowly growing cabinet.
Roto set his 9.95 personal best at the Gauteng North Championships in March this year, and improved after falling short in London a few days ago. The upcoming star said he gets his inspiration from himself, his mother and coach.
‘If I’d executed a better race I would have been tops, but I’m quite happy with my performance. I’m so proud that I could do this for my country,’ said Roto.
The Tuks student hopes to grow from strength to strength after this win. He now looks forward to the 4x100m men’s relay race with his South African teammates on Sunday.
And the day got better for Team South Africa, as the women’s football team secured their spot in the semi-finals after beating the United States 1-0, with midfielder Biyana Kholosa scoring the only goal of the game in the 73rd minute.
The women’s team beat Great Britain 3-1 and lost 1-0 to Russia in Group D of the pool stages to qualify for the quarter-finals.
South Africa will play Japan in Saturday’s semi-finals. SA played a friendly match against the Japanese ahead of the tournament, which ended in a 1-all draw.
Team South Africa’s two medals see them slot in at joint 35th position on the medal table with Cyprus.