South Africa’s newest rising star, Chris Smith, flies to the US on Wednesday to scout out a few universities, although the coach who guided him to a world junior record last month is cautioning about potential pitfalls Stateside.
Multimillion-rand scholarships that cover all costs are not to be sniffed at, especially for a South African in a marginal code where sponsorships are hard to come by.
But the flip side is that the last time US-based South Africans reached an Olympic podium was at Athens 2004, nearly three years before Smith was born.
All three Games medallists since then — Cameron van der Burgh, Chad Le Clos and Tatjana Smith — were homegrown.
Smith, a breaststroker like Van der Burgh and his female namesake, turns 19 next month, but he knows what he wants.
In the long term, it’s to own the 50m and 100m world records in both 25m and 50m pools.
For this year, Smith has set himself impressive goals. “I’m going to focus on nationals [in Gqeberha in April] and then the world champs [in Singapore from July to August]. I want to qualify at nationals and then hopefully make the 50m and 100m breast finals at worlds,” said Smith, who matriculated at Zwartkop high school in Centurion last year.
But he’s less certain about his academic future should he begin studying in the US in August. “I don’t want to do anything hard because it’s going to be difficult to have swimming twice a day, gymming and everything. But I think I want to maybe do something in IT, but I’m not 100% sure. It could still easily change.”
Smith set his age-group world record going 25.66sec in the 50m semifinals at the world short-course championships in Budapest last month.
He reckons he would have been as lethal in an Olympic-sized 50m pool. “I could have also got the 50m junior world record in long-course, but unfortunately I didn’t get an opportunity.”
The 27.28 50m personal best he set at the national championships last year is inside the 27.33 automatic qualifying time for Singapore.
Achieving the 59.75 100m entry mark would make him the third-fastest South African behind Van der Burgh (58.46) and Michael Houlie, the US-based student who has not been faster than the 59.64 he went in 2019.
Coach Michelle Vlasakova, a former Czech swimmer who competed internationally for 10 years and also studied in the US, believes Smith, who joined her when he was about 10, should take a gap year before heading to the US, warning that it can take up to a year before one sees improvements after switching coach and programme.
“I told him it’s a great opportunity, but he’s dropping times [now]. It’s not too smart to change. Maybe if he was stuck for two years [not improving his] time.”
Vlasakova warned that colleges valued the team above individuals.
She drives the Alcatraz club out of the Rooihuiskraal Virgin Active, which has a 25m pool, but she believes that’s sufficient for long-course preparation. “It’s actually better to swim short-course because if you do all your underwaters properly, which is heavy on the lungs, you actually train harder,” she said, adding sprinters like Smith shouldn’t do more than one pool session a day.
Vlasakova is looking for sponsorships to entice Smith to stay; if swimmer and coach can keep producing magic in the months ahead maybe she can pull it off.
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