She said she was done with swimming but now she says she is missing the water badly.

Double Olympic champion Tatjana Smith is coming out of retirement and she has her eyes firmly on Los Angeles 2028, reports cbinews.tv.

The 29 year old, who is South Africa most decorated Olympian with four medals to her name, admitted her return feels a little crazy, a little scary and very exciting all at once. You can hear the human angle in that. After Paris she walked away feeling complete but the pool kept calling.

Smith won 100m breaststroke gold and 200m silver at Paris 2024, to add to 200m breaststroke gold and 100m silver at Tokyo 2020. She also once held the 200m breaststroke world record. She retired right after Paris as a legend who had nothing left to prove.

This is not just a comeback, it is a totally new chapter. For LA 2028, World Aquatics has added the 50m sprints in breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly to the Olympic programme for the first time. Smith is targeting the 50m breaststroke, pure speed, one length, no room for error.

The 50m is a splash and dash. It has always been at World Championships but never at the Olympics until now. For a breaststroke technician like Smith, it means rebuilding her race completely from endurance to explosive power.

In her own words, “it is definitely a new challenge, a new event, a new race, but also a new me”. She said for the first time she is choosing swimming, choosing the event and choosing to try to write some new history because the event has no history yet.

As she puts it, LA 2028 is the goal, it is not a promise. She still has to build a race, qualify and earn her place back on those blocks. If she does, she could become South Africa first woman to medal at three different Games.

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