Olympics day in history: Tatjana breaks world record winning 200m breaststroke in Tokyo

1976 — Bruce Jenner wins the Olympic decathlon gold at the Montreal Games, amassing 8,618 points to break his own world record. Jenner later earned fame as the father figure in the Kardashian reality TV show before transitioning to Caitlyn.

2004 — Cyclist JP van Zyl wins the second track world championship medal of his career, taking bronze in the men’s scratch at the Manchester velodrome to add to the keirin silver he had won in 1997.

2005 — Roland Schoeman wins the 50m freestyle world championship gold in the second-fastest time of all time in Montreal. His 21.69 sec was five-hundredths of a second slower than Alexander Popov’s world record. Those remained the two fastest times until the introduction in 2008 of full-body suits that were later outlawed.

2011 — Gerhard Zandberg wins his fourth world championship 50m backstroke medal, taking bronze in Shanghai in 24.66. Briton Liam Tancock won in 24.50 with Frenchman Camille Lacourt second in 24.57.

2021 — Tatjana Schoenmaker breaks the world record as she wins the 200m breaststroke gold at the Tokyo Games for her second medal of the showpiece. The 100m silver medallist touched in 2min 18.95sec, nearly a second ahead of American Lilly King in 2:19.92 and 16-hundredths of a second inside the world record set by Rikke Pedersen of Denmark in 2013. Schoenmaker’s training partner, Kaylene Corbett, was fifth in 2:22.06. The open-air Tuks pool where they trained was hit by the return of load-shedding a few weeks before they flew out, causing the water temperature to drop too low in midwinter. A generator was hired at a huge cost to keep the heater going.