Tatjana Schoenmaker will be the main attraction when she tackles the women's 100m breaststroke event today after swimming a world-leading time in the 200m breaststroke in Gqeberha on Friday night.
The Pretoria swimmer clocked 2min 20.17sec at the SA Invitational Aquatics Championships in the Newton Park pool to occupy the top of the world rankings in 2021 with the Tokyo Games just more than three months away.
More importantly, however, her time is the joint fastest in the world since 2018, ranking her alongside drug-tainted Russian Yulia Efimova.
She's thrown down a gauntlet to the rest of the world, most of whom have yet to dive into competitive swimming for the season.
Americans Lilly King and Annie Lazor, Russia's Evgeniia Chikunova and Molly Renshaw of England will look to spoil her party.
Efimova, a two-time world champion who was banned for 16 months after testing positive for a steroid, could be another thorn in the side of the Tuks swimmer, if she is allowed to compete in Tokyo.
Time trial
Schoenmaker was supposed to have a rest day yesterday, but she decided to have a 200m time trial last night to keep herself busy.
"It's just to get a feeling of swimming the heats, semis and finals because obviously when you get to the finals, you are tired the whole day, you just lie there doing nothing and get lazy."
In 2016, Schoenmaker missed qualifying for the Rio Olympics by one-hundredth of a second.
Now, five years later, she is on track for the Games podium.
Though the 200m race is her premier event, Schoenmaker is a contender in the 100m, with the third-fastest time since 2018, the 1:05.89 she swam in Stellenbosch earlier this year.
The 30.32 50m African record she swam at the start of this gala suggests she can go even faster, though her coach Rocco Meiring wasn't convinced it would be today.
"She can go faster, I am 100% sure of that. I don't know if she will go faster here, because she's coming off what we would call a breakthrough swim.
"It is difficult to pick yourself up for another one, the body and nervous system need a rest," Meiring said.
Chad Le Clos, SA's most decorated Olympian with four medals, is in action today in the 100m butterfly and is expected to add to his 50m and 200m victories here.
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