Tatjana, Pieter cruise in the pool, but SA medal hopes evaporate elsewhere

31 July 2024 - 15:34 By David Isaacson in Paris
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Vicky van der Merwe competes in the women's triathlon at the Paris Olympics, with the Grand Palais in the background.
Vicky van der Merwe competes in the women's triathlon at the Paris Olympics, with the Grand Palais in the background.
Image: Jamie Squire/Getty Images

South African hopes of triathlon and rowing medals evaporated in the humidity that enveloped Paris on Wednesday morning after an overnight storm.

Rio 2016 bronze medallist Henri Schoeman finished 20th and Jamie Riddle 25th in the men’s triathlon race while rowers John Smith and Chris Baxter ended fourth in their men’s pair semifinal, knocking them off podium course into the B final.

Vicky van der Merwe was 46th in the women’s triathlon.

Team South Africa’s strongest remaining medal hopes are in swimming and athletics, which begins on Friday. Golf can’t be discounted either.

In the pool, Tatjana Smith and Kaylene Corbett easily sailed through the heats of the women’s breaststroke, finishing first and second in the same race and ranking first and sixth overall.

Pieter Coetzé won his 200m backstroke heat in a comfortable 1:56.92 to progress to the evening semifinals.

The women’s hockey team was beaten 2-1 by Great Britain.

In the triathlon Schoeman used the surf-lifesaving skills he learnt as a child in Durban in the opening swimming leg in the Seine, where the current was strong.

“I found every time we went around the buoy I was able to get straight to the front. That current was strong so I tried to push right to the side and get to where the flow was least,” said Schoeman, who was second coming out of the water.

Riddle was seventh. “I was getting battered and bruised left, right and centre and coming around that buoy.

“I have grown up in St Francis, Jeffreys Bay, so I know what waves and things can do — that was far more difficult than any six-foot wave I’ve ever experienced.”

Van der Merwe had an even worse time of it. “The swim was different to any other race we’ve done, with the current. It was a tactical swim, a lot of the girls struggled,” said the mother of one who has a full-time job.

“I at a stage thought I was going to drown around a buoy, I was underwater for quite a long time. It was chaos.”

With no attack on the bike, the men’s triathlon came down to the 10km run. “When I hit the run, the legs just didn’t arrive. I gave it my best shot,” said Schoeman, who has spent the better part of the past three years recovering from a broken ankle sustained at Tokyo 2020.

“I think I just lacked a bit of race speed, but it was also very hot out there.”

Riddle said he felt his hamstring cramping getting out of the water but he was determined to grit it out to the end.

Schoeman added it hadn’t been easy dealing with the uncertainty around the triathlon.

“That was probably the toughest part of all of this because I went to bed last night [Tuesday] thinking, ‘are we going to race today? are they just going to postpone it?’

“So you have all of this going through your mind and at the end of the day, it does zap some energy.”

But Schoeman said he enjoyed it. “It was actually pretty exciting. I loved that, the crowds were incredible. It was crazy, the support, and you can’t even hear yourself think, it was so loud. I was taking some moments to soak it all in on the bike and take in all the atmosphere.”

Schoeman, 32, plans to focus on longer-distance triathlon races, but didn’t write off his chances of competing at another Olympics. 

All the latest Paris Games coverage on TimesLIVE’s Olympics 2024 page.

All the Team SA results here.


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