SA’s Olympic medal quest is going to be tough — here are the few hopefuls

South Africa has had most of its Olympic Games success on the athletics track, with 31% of all medals won on or around the oval artificial surface.

The country’s most recent medal haul (three) at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, held in 2021, was its third-worst since readmission after Beijing in 2008 (one) and Barcelona in 1992 (two).

South Africa’s greatest medal haul was at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016 where Wayde van Niekerk and Caster Semenya carried the baton with a gold medal apiece, and swimmers Chad le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh brought home silvers.

Luvo Manyonga jumped to silver in the sand, Sunette Viljoen threw her way to second place with the javelin, and Lawrence Brittain and Shaun Keeling also rowed their way to silvers in the men’s coxless pair.

Henri Schoeman, who is back this year, swam, cycled and ran to third place in the men’s triathlon and the Blitzboks secured bronze in rugby sevens.

No track and field athletes stepped onto the podium three years ago, when only breaststroke queen Tatjana Smith (née Schoenmaker) and surfing sensation Bianca Buitendag returned with medals. Buitendag has since retired.

In Paris, the weight of medal expectations once again lies on Smith.

Swimming

She heads into the Olympic Games as the forerunner in the 200m breaststroke, the event in which she broke the world record at Tokyo three years ago in a time of 2:18.95.

Smith has not been able to better that time in the passing years and the record was broken in 2023 by Russia’s Evgeniia Chikunova, clocking 2:17.55 at the Russian national competition.

But Chikunova has boycotted the Olympics because she, along with other Russian athletes, are only allowed to compete as neutral athletes after the International Olympic Committee banned Russian and Belarusian athletes because of their countries’ war with Ukraine.

America’s Kate Douglass is likely to push Smith the hardest in the 200m breaststroke, since they are the only two athletes to have swum below two minutes 20 seconds a number of times over the past few months.

Read more: Olympic Games Paris 2024

In the 100m breaststroke, in which Smith took silver in Tokyo – although she has the Olympic record after a terrific swim in her heat three years ago – the competition is a lot stiffer.

If Smith does win medals in both events, she will, alongside Le Clos, become the country’s most decorated Olympian, with four.

Youngster Pieter Coetzé is South Africa’s other potential medal hope in the pool. He is a bit further behind the pack, but the local backstroke champion has had some international success and in the process built some confidence heading into the Games.

Read more: Games changer — Pieter Coetzé is the future star of South African men’s swimming

The 20-year-old will compete in the 100m and 200m backstroke, in which he took gold and bronze respectively at the Commonwealth Games in 2022.

Le Clos is an outside bet for a medal in Paris, having struggled with form recently. He will compete for a spot on the podium in the 100m butterfly.

Athletics

South Africa’s athletics prospects are not as strong as they have been in previous years.

One of the country’s flag bearers, Akani Simbine, has been running blistering 100m times this year, but so have his competition.

Simbine has tied for fifth-fastest time this year, having run 9.86 seconds just two weeks before the Games.

Akani Simbine in the 100m heats during the CAA 20th African Senior Championships at Kings Park in Durban on 22 June 2016. (Photo: Roger Sedres / Gallo Images)

Caitlin Rooskrantz during the gymnastics podium training session at the Utilita Arena in Birmingham, England, on 27 July 2022. (Photo: Anton Geyser / Gallo Images)

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.