Tatjana Schoenmaker Scratches 50 Breast Semis, Her Teammate Lara Van Niekerk Is In

2023 WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS

WOMEN’S 50 BREASTSTROKE — PRELIMS

  • World Record: 29.30 — Benedetta Pilato, Italy (2021)
  • Championship Record: 29.40 — Lilly King, United States (2017)
  • World Junior Record: 29.30 — Benedetta Pilato, Italy (2021)
  • 2022 Winning Time: 29.70 — Ruta Meilutyte, Lithuania
  • 2022 Top 16 Time: 31.02

200 breast World Champion Tatjana Schoenmaker has scratched the semi-final of the women’s 50 breast at the 2023 World Championships, making room for her South African teammate and defending bronze medalist Lara Van Niekerk to qualify.

In the prelims of the 50 breast, Van Niekerk dove in too deep on her start and ended up clocking a time of 30.76, over a second off her personal best of 29.73. She finished 17th, and would have been the first one out had Schoenmaker not scratched.

The 50 breast marks Van Niekerk’s first semi-final at these World Championships, as she placed 18th in the 100 breast with a time of 1:07.03. At the 2022 Worlds, she was 13th in the 100 breast in addition to her podium finish in the 50 breast.

Schoenmaker had qualified for the semi-final in 14th with a time of 30.70. She’s seen more success in the longer breaststroke events though, having taken silver in the 100 breast and gold in the 200 breast.

In This Story

10
Leave a Reply

Subscribe
Notify of

10 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
David S
1 year ago

Van Niekerk sounds like a fast surname

maheny
1 year ago

well that paid off

rhode
1 year ago

Schoenmaker has always been a very nice young lady.

Jeandp
1 year ago

Love the South African comradery 🇿🇦

FST
1 year ago

Reminds me of the 200m freestyle in ’94 in Rome, when van Almsick didn’t qualify for the final but Hase did… and then scratched/was told to scratch. Van Almsick then swam a world record, which would stand for 8 years, only to be broken by herself.
Anyway, Hase got a bouquet of flowers for it from the German swimming federation. She wasn’t happy.

Sub13
1 year ago

Part of me thinks it was an obvious decision because she’s not going to win a medal. But the other part thinks Tatjana knows she can’t win a relay medal (or probably even final) so she’s just given up her last finals session opportunity. That’s pretty classy

Nick
1 year ago

Who says swimming isn’t a team sport ?

The Kaz
1 year ago

Not a surprise from Tatjana, she is a classy team player and knows Lara has a much much better chance of a medal then she does.

About Yanyan Li

Yanyan Li

Although Yanyan wasn't the greatest competitive swimmer, she learned more about the sport of swimming by being her high school swim team's manager for four years. She eventually ventured into the realm of writing and joined SwimSwam in January 2022, where she hopes to contribute to and learn more about …

Read More »