Tatjana Smith switches from South Africa to the Netherlands

Tatjana Smith, South Africa's most decorated Olympian, will now swim for the Netherlands. The breaststroke swimmer has changed her international allegiance, and she is set to race for her new country for the first time at the short-course world championships, held from 1 to 6 December.

BBC Sport reported the switch. Short course means racing in a 25-metre pool, half the length of the Olympic pool, so the times are faster and the races are a different test.

Smith has a Dutch link through her father, which gives her dual citizenship. Her maiden name was Schoenmaker. She will keep living and training in South Africa while she represents the Netherlands.

Her record is already substantial. In Tokyo in 2021 she won gold in the 200m breaststroke and silver in the 100m. At Paris 2024 she reversed those colours, taking gold in the 100m and silver in the 200m. Four Olympic medals, two of them gold, and then she stepped away from the pool after Paris.

She said financial and practical challenges made it hard to keep her swimming career going. Retirement did not last long. In September she came back, with a new target: the 50m breaststroke at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. That event makes its Olympic debut in Los Angeles, which means the first Olympic champion in the race has yet to be crowned.

The 50m is a single length of the pool, a sprint with no room for a slow start. Swimmers who do well in it tend to be explosive off the wall and quick with their strokes, and the event rewards tight, clean turns. Smith's return is aimed at a race that does not yet have a history of champions, which adds an open question to the next two years.

For now, the first test of her new colours comes in December. The short-course worlds will show how quickly a swimmer with Olympic experience can settle into a different national team, and whether a training base in South Africa works for the Dutch side.