Having ended a two-year exile from competitive swimming, South Africa's most successful Olympian Tatjana Smith has revealed she "lost the love" for her sport before stepping away from the pool in 2024. The 29-year-old's decision to retire straight after the Paris Games came as a surprise, given she had just won 200m breaststroke gold in the French capital to add to her 100m title from Tokyo 2020.

But after two years away, which included several months in which she did not swim at all, Smith says she is now "free from the things that made me hate swimming". "My whole life, I was kind of a robot towards swimming," she told Newsday on the BBC World Service. "You're so zoned in, you're obsessed with something, so there isn't actually time for you to think about things outside of the pool that you potentially have a passion for."

Financial worries, including a dispute with Swimming South Africa over prize money, also contributed to her decision. "The financial burden on any athlete is so tough," she explained. Smith's total of four Olympic medals for South Africa is matched only by fellow swimmer Chad le Clos, who claimed one gold and three silvers across the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Games.

Smith says working out what to do next was far from easy. "I definitely understand what athletes mean from the post-Olympic depression," said the 2023 200m breaststroke world champion. "It was such an emptiness in my life, because my whole life revolved around swimming."