Tatjana Smith stayed on course to win her first medal of the Olympic Games on a day of mixed fortunes for Team SA in Paris.
The Tokyo gold and silver medallist cruised through her morning heat of the 100m breaststroke and then swam exactly the same time of 1:05.00 to win the evening semifinal, ensuring she’ll have a shot at another medal in Monday night’s final after qualifying as the quickest swimmer.
“I’m just grateful to be swimming much faster times. That’s my fastest time since Tokyo but I think most of all, it’s not even for me anymore or about the time. It’s just really enjoying the experience and I’m having so much more fun,” she said after the race.
“I’m excited. I’m so glad to have a lane in the final. Obviously, lane four is a really nice lane. It’s a blessing but also sometimes not… you never know what to expect so, if you have a lane you have a chance.
“I know I’ve prepared as best as I could so now is the fun part.”
👂 Hear what Tatjana Smith has to say about her performance! 🇿🇦 #TeamSA #Olympics #ForMyCountry pic.twitter.com/gtKsBMdM58
— Team South Africa (@OfficialTeamRSA) July 28, 2024
Also making his way safely through his semifinal on Sunday was Pieter Coetzé in the 100m backstroke.
The 20-year-old set a new African record on his way to joint second place in his semifinal, reaching the wall in 52.63 seconds.
That meant he was the joint third-fastest qualifier into Monday night’s final.
“I wasn’t thinking about time at all going into this. I just wanted to make the final so to get the time is always nice but it’s not really about times here,” said Coetzé afterwards.
“I’m just glad I made it back. At the Olympics, you just want a spot in the final because you can’t win a medal if you’re not in the final so you have to take it step by step and that’s how I like to do it.”
🏊♂️ A few words from Pieter Coetze. #TeamSA #ForMyCountry #Olympics pic.twitter.com/3U3TnX8fxj
— Team South Africa (@OfficialTeamRSA) July 28, 2024
The only other South African swimmer in action on Sunday night was Aimee Canny, who did well to reach the 200m freestyle semifinal.
She finished sixth in her semifinal in 1:57.34 and so missed out on the final by two places.
BAD LUCK FOR ROOSKRANTZ AND LILL
Meanwhile, there was desperate disappointment for both gymnast Cailtin Rooskrantz and mountain biker Candice Lill.
Rooskrantz injured her foot during her floor routine and was unable to continue in the all-around competition.
SA gymnast Caitlin Rooskrantz has been forced to withdraw from the all-around competition at the Olympics after suffering an injury to her right foot during the floor exercise on Sunday. It is unclear as yet whether she will play a further part in these Games. pic.twitter.com/nOrO36voKa
— Team South Africa (@OfficialTeamRSA) July 28, 2024
Over at the Elancourt Hill mountain bike track, Lill was primed as a possible medal prospect after finishing on two World Cup podiums this season.
But disaster struck on the second of seven laps as the 32-year-old’s wheel buckled.
“I came down one of the roll-downs on the course – it’s a rock roll – and as I hit the bottom my back wheel just blew to pieces so I had to run down to the tech zone and change a wheel and get going again by which point I had obviously lost a lot of positions,” explained a devastated Lill afterwards.
From that point on, keeping motivated to continue fighting in the race became especially difficult and Lill did well to finish in 20th place.
🚴♀ @Candice_MTB pushed through and finished 20th with a time of 1hr 30min 33sec🇿🇦💪#TeamSA #ForMyCountry #Olympics pic.twitter.com/sbO4F6dYdH
— Team South Africa (@OfficialTeamRSA) July 28, 2024
“You’re here at the Olympics, you have to give everything. I think there is something special that happens when you’re fighting close to the front, that you’re able to dig a bit deeper and be part of the racing so it's much more exciting and motivating whereas a lot of the time today I was racing on my own so it’s hard to stay feeling that you’re in a race but I did push as hard as I could,” she explained.
ROWERS INTO SEMIS
In rowing, the SA men’s pair of John Smith – gold medallist in London in 2012 – and Chris Baxter finished second in their heat behind Great Britain (6:33.88) in a time of 6:36.71 to book a spot in Wednesday’s semifinal.
“The race went well,” said Smith. “We executed what we needed to do but we’re going to work really hard in the next few days to try and improve a few things and look for a better race come the semifinals.
Baxter echoed those sentiments.
“Our race went well – a really, really good first Olympic race. We’ve still got some speed to find for our semi and we’re going to be working really hard to find all the speed that we can in the next few days before our semi,” he said.
🚣♂ Semi-Final Bound!#TeamSA #ForMyCountry #Olympics pic.twitter.com/1GgGwpV3ZU
— Team South Africa (@OfficialTeamRSA) July 28, 2024
HOCKEY TEAMS PUT UP A FIGHT
Elsewhere the South African men’s hockey team came close to pulling off a stunning victory over Great Britain.
The SA side were 2-1 up by the final minute, but Rupert Shipperley broke South African hearts by slotting in an equaliser for a share of the points with 50 seconds left on the clock.
🏑 Final score#TeamSA #ForMyCountry #Olympics pic.twitter.com/RBamgL5zGm
— Team South Africa (@OfficialTeamRSA) July 28, 2024
The women’s hockey team also put up a brave performance against three-time Olympic gold medallists Australia.
Kayla de Waal opened the scoring in the 14th minute before the Australians found the equaliser two minutes later, and the SA side managed to keep things level right until the third quarter when Tatum Stewart scored the winner for the Hockeyroos.
Considering the South Africans went down 5-0 to the same opposition the last time they played them, a 2-1 defeat was an impressive result.
🇿🇦 Final Score:
— Team South Africa (@OfficialTeamRSA) July 28, 2024
Our Women’s Hockey team fought hard only losing 2-1 to Australia.#TeamSA #ForMyCountry #Olympics pic.twitter.com/xqAhpyeKfY
“For us it’s all about building and so the next game we will focus on the little areas that we need to focus on and we will keep going,” said SA captain Erin Christie after the match.
“I’m very, very proud of my team and very proud of the level of hockey that we put out today.”
In other events, Boipelo Awuah did not make it through to the women’s street skateboarding final after finishing 18th in the prelims while fencer Harry Saner went down 15-9 in his table of 64 epee encounter with Kazakhstan’s Vadim Sharlaimov.
The South Africans also found it tough going in their opening matches of the women’s sevens tournament, going down 34-5 to Australia and 38-0 to Ireland.
Historic first, but tough day at the office for the #BokWomen7s 🏉#RiseUp pic.twitter.com/vIYbA7ba54
— SA Women's Rugby (@WomenBoks) July 28, 2024
South Africa finished the day joint 22nd on the medal table, with Egypt and Tunisia the only other African countries to feature so far.
Tunisia’s fencer Fares Ferjani won silver in the men’s sabre while fellow fencer Mohamed El-Sayed claimed Egypt’s first medal of the Games in the men’s epee on Sunday.