Tatjana Smith ends retirement with eye on new 50m event at LA 2028

South Africa's most decorated Olympian says she has rediscovered her love of swimming two years after walking away following Paris gold.

Tatjana Smith, South Africa's most successful Olympian, has come out of retirement two years after stepping away from competitive swimming following the Paris Games. Smith, 29, won 200m breaststroke gold in Paris to go with her 100m title from Tokyo 2020, plus silvers at both Games, matching Chad le Clos's national record of four Olympic medals.

Speaking to the BBC World Service, Smith said she had approached her sport mechanically for most of her life and felt she had lost her passion for it. She said she now feels free of the factors that made her unhappy in the pool, even though the timing of her retirement struck many as odd given it came immediately after an Olympic title.

Smith pointed to financial pressure as another factor in her 2024 decision, describing a dispute with Swimming South Africa over prize money and noting that most sponsorships depend on results. She said she relied on her parents for support until breaking the world record, and criticized a system she felt did not put athletes first.

Her time away was difficult. Smith described the emptiness of post-Olympic life and a period of post-Olympic depression, taking on speaking engagements despite disliking public appearances. A return to swimming for fitness, followed by triathlon training, gradually reignited her love for the pool.

Now she is targeting the 50m breaststroke, newly added to the Olympic program for Los Angeles 2028, and has cut her training from eight sessions a week to three. Smith compared the shift to a 400m runner moving to the 100m, saying she is teaching her body a new way to swim after two decades of endurance work.