In 2024, South African swimmer Tatjana Smith chose a rare time to make a retirement announcement — during the middle of the Paris Olympics.
Now, in the middle of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic cycle, she is making her comeback announcement.
Smith, the 200m breaststroke gold medalist in Tokyo (as Tatjana Schoenmaker) and 100m breast gold medalist in Paris, is ending a two-year retirement this week to compete in her national short course championships, a qualifying meet for the World Short Course Championships in Beijing in December.
“When I announced my retirement from swimming, I genuinely believed that chapter of my life was over,” Smith, 29, said in a press release. “With some distance, I realized that stepping away had been the right decision for me at that time. I had always believed that swimming was something I did, not who I was. Stepping away proved that to me. I discovered that I could have a full life beyond the pool and still choose to swim. I am coming back because I want to. This time, the decision is mine. The time away gave me perspective, but it also gave me power. Now I get to bring both of those things back into the pool.”
Smith, who announced her retirement in 2024 in between winning 100m breast gold and 200m breast silver in Paris, is switching her focus to the 50m breast — a new Olympic event — for her return. The 100m “will still be in the picture,” but it’s not her primary event.
“I’ve achieved more than I ever dreamed possible in my life through swimming,” she said in an interview. “So the expectation is not to come and try and top all those things. But the beauty of it is I don’t carry that pressure on that 200m anymore. I’m choosing a different event, choosing something completely new and challenging, and now almost like all those small victories are going to be massively celebrated because it’s a space that I’ve never been into, and just reinventing myself.”
Smith had comeback inklings as far back as December 2024, when she emailed drug-testing authorities about the possibility of re-entering the system to become eligible to return if she wanted to. Unretiring swimmers at Smith’s level must re-enter the testing pool six months before returning to competition.
In October 2025, Smith, then still not committed to a swimming comeback, finished third in a local Olympic-distance triathlon.
“Now and then, I went back to the pool as a training session, just to move away from the gym,” she said. “Every time I dived in, I was like, wow, I really miss that quietness. I was diving in and just being so present, and I was just like, I really miss swimming. Why do I have this tension, and I’m completely turned off (about a comeback)? But when I’m there, and I’m actually training, I’m having so much fun.”
On March 8, 2026, she sent an email to re-enter the testing pool, making her eligible to compete now.
“I needed that clean break because I realized there were so many external things that all played a role in making me getting to a point where I was like, I cannot anymore,” she said. “One was the pressure. Two, it was definitely, I think, a mental and physical burnout. I don’t think you realize because you’re always in the next cycle. To try and maintain the performances I did from Tokyo to Paris, that is already hard for any athlete to hold those performances over an Olympic cycle.”
In Smith’s absence, American Kate Douglass was the top overall breaststroker in 2025, taking 200m breast gold and 100m breast silver at the World Championships.
In the 50m, Lithuanian Ruta Meilutyte won the 2025 World title, while China’s Tang Qianting and American McKenzie Siroky have been the fastest swimmers in 2026.
For Smith, the comeback is not about a potential medal in 2028, but “purely about the love for it and loving to compete.”
“I’m not going here saying I promise I’m going to make the podium,” Smith said. “It’s the goal and it’s a dream, and that’s what we’ll try and work towards. But that would not define the success of me making this decision.
“I still have so much passion for it, and there’s only such a season in your life to pursue a sport like this, so why not give it another shot?”
