Tatjana Smith Switches Allegiance to the Netherlands
Double Olympic champion Tatjana Smith will swim for the Netherlands, and her first race for her new country is at the World Championships, 1 to 6 December. She announced the switch on Wednesday, 11 November, and it has already drawn a sharp reaction from her former federation.
Smith holds dual citizenship because her father is Dutch. She was previously known as Tatjana Schoenmaker, and she has won four Olympic medals in total. She stepped away from swimming after the Paris 2024 Olympics, then came out of retirement in September.
Smith said that representing the Netherlands offers greater high-performance support. In elite sport, that phrase usually means the coaching, medical care, training facilities and funding that help a swimmer train at the top level every day.
Zikie Molusi, the acting chief executive of Swimming South Africa, called the decision "sad" for South Africa. He told eNews Channel Africa that he understood Smith's reasons after receiving her message. BBC Sport reported his comments.
Molusi also addressed a separate dispute. Speaking to Radio 702, he said Swimming South Africa should not have withheld Smith's prize money after the 2023 World Championships. He said the money was held back because of conflicting sponsorship agreements, meaning contracts with sponsors that could not all be honoured at once.
For Smith, the new flag arrives after a long run of success and a year of uncertainty over her future in the sport. Her debut for the Dutch team will be the first real test of how the change works on the pool deck, where the clock does not care about passports or history.
