Olympic 200m breaststroke champion and world record holder, Tatjana Schoenmaker, was one of the big stars at the recent SA Sports Awards event in Durban, being named as Sports Star of the Year and Sportswoman of the year. The awards covered the COVID-19 interrupted period 1 September 2019 to 31 August 2021. This was Schoenmaker’s umpteenth award after her brilliant performances at last year’s Olympics in Japan, where she won gold in the 200m breaststroke and silver in the 100m breaststroke, while also setting a new world record in the first mentioned item. Among other things, she was also named Tuks’s sportswoman of the year last year. In addition, she was crowned Africa’s Female Swimmer of the Year last year by Swimming World, a highly regarded US-based monthly swimming magazine. The past few years, Schoenmaker has transformed herself into South Africa’s top women’s swimmer. Shortly after the SA Sports awards, Schoenmaker was also honoured by the global media company, Forbes. Schoenmaker’s incredible sporting achievements were celebrated at this year’s awards ceremony of the Forbes Women Africa Leading Women Summit. The Pretoria superstar swimmer took home the illustrious Forbes Woman Africa Sports Award at the ceremony, which honoured female powerhouses across a number of categories. “Thank you so much Forbes Africa for choosing me, it’s such an honour to receive this award. It’s so amazing that we are able to celebrate women and recognise their achievements this way,” Schoenmaker said upon receiving the award. Forbes Africa stated that Schoenmaker continues to inspire a generation of female athletes while embodying the theme at their summit this year – Resetting Everything: The New Face of Leadership.  

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