Breaststroke Brilliance by Tatjana Schoenmaker is Swimming World Female World Record of the Year

Jul 30, 2021; Tokyo, Japan; Tatjana Schoenmaker (RSA) is congratulated by Kaylene Corbett (RSA) after winning the women's 200m breaststroke final during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Summer Games at Tokyo Aquatics Centre. Mandatory Credit: Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports

Tatjana Schoenmaker, left, and Kaylene Corbett; Photo Courtesy: Rob Schumacher/USA Today Sports

Breaststroke Brilliance by Tatjana Schoenmaker is Swimming World Female World Record of the Year

Nothing surrounding the Tokyo Olympics felt inevitable, but Tatjana Schoenmaker came close. By the seventh day of competition, the South African breaststroker had done quite a bit of work.

She’d tallied the Olympic record in prelims of the women’s 100 breast, quicker than Lydia Jacoby’s gold-winning time in a final in which Schoenmaker took silver. She’d also used her prelims heat in the 200 breast to down the Olympic mark in that event.

So with time draining out of the pandemic-impacted Games, if ever a world record was going to fall on the individual side, it just had to be Schoenmaker doing the rewriting, no?

Schoenmaker’s answer was an emphatic affirmative on the morning of July 30 at the Tokyo Aquatics Center. After getting a surprise pulled on her in the 100, she had no intention of sticking around long enough for anyone in the 200 breast final to do the same. The result was an authoritative swim from start to finish, a time of 2:18.95, and the first (and only) women’s world record set at the Tokyo Olympics.

Schoenmaker executed her race plan to perfection – so much so that an outstanding race by Lilly King resulted in the silver medal by a margin of nearly a second. Confident in her speed from her performance in the 100, she went out fast in 1:07.06, well ahead of King, whose only hope was to daze Schoenmaker with her opening 100 meters and hang on.

A 200 breaststroker by specialty, Schoenmaker knew she had the legs coming home. She split identical 35.42s on the middle 50s and roared home with gold secured and only the world record to sort out.

In prelims, she’d taken down the nine-year-old Olympic mark set by Rebecca Soni in London, slicing .43 off the record in 2:19.16. She was under Soni’s old mark with a 2:19.33 to set the pace in the semifinals.

All that stood before her was the 2:19.11 set by Denmark’s Rikke Moller Pedersen in 2013, the oldest textile-suit individual record on the books in women’s swimming, and the third-oldest overall with two enduring super-suit marks from 2009.

The shock on Schoenmaker’s face when she hit the wall and saw the 2:18 – from a nation that had gone 21 years between female Olympic swimming medals, from a swimmer who wanted nothing more upon arrival in Tokyo then a lane and a chance in the final of her preferred event – told the tale.

“I would’ve never even thought, because it’s my first Olympics,” she said. “For me to get a lane in the final, then everyone stands a chance, that’s the thing I’ve always been after. This has exceeded all my expectations, so I couldn’t be happier.”

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