Tatjana Schoenmaker can, for now at least, claim to be the world's fastest female 200m breaststroke swimmer after yet again setting a new African record winning in 2:20.17 at the South African National Aquatic Champs in Port Elizabeth. She also staged a new African and South African record time of 30.32 in the women's 50m breaststroke final.

By swimming 2:20.17, she has qualified compete at the Olympic Games for the first time in her career. 

It is hard to believe, but six years ago, no one really took note of Schoenmaker's pool heroics and rightfully so. In 2016, her best time in the 200m-breaststroke was 2:26.50. It was only the 174th fastest that year. 

But things would dramatically over the next five years. In 2017, she swam 2:24.61 (58th fastest time); 2018 (2:22.02 - 6th fastest); 2019 (2:21.79 - 9th fastest) and 2021 (10th - 2:24.46). 

The Tuks swimmer has basically been improving her times by one second each year to establish herself as one of the world's best ever. Recently, her winning time of 2:20.17 is the joint 18th fastest on FINA's all-time list. It is interesting to note that only six swimmers had swum faster times. 

Rikke Pedersen (Denmark) set the world record in 2013 swimming 2:19.11. Since 2016 only two swimmers had been faster than the Tuks swimmer. Japan's Rie Kaneto clocked 2:19.65 in 2016 and Russia's Yuliya Efimova 2:19.64 in 2017.  

Schoenmaker has also steadily been improving 100m-breaststroke times. In 2017, she swam 1:07.44. It was only the 120th fastest time that year. In 2018, she improved her time to 1:06.41 (25th fastest), 2019 to 1:06.32 (16th fastest). Her current personal best time of 1:05.89 is the second fastest so far this season. 

The Tuks swimmer's progression in the 50m-event is equally impressive. In 2018, she swam 30.82s. Now her best time is 20.32s. 

Rocco Meiring (TuksSwimming head coach) had been instrumental in guiding Schoenmaker to become the world-class swimmer she is. He is on a continuous quest to find ways to get her to be that hundredth of a second faster. 

"My role is to help Tatjana 'unlock' her full potential. The better she becomes, the bigger my challenge'."

On a greater note at the recent National Champs, Schoenmaker managed to achieve two Olympic qualifying times (100m and 200m breaststroke) and swam three new Personal Best times in the 50m, 100m and 200m.