Swimming-South African Smith comes out of retirement, sets sights on 50m breaststroke at LA28


FILE PHOTO: Paris 2024 Olympics - Swimming - Women's 200m Breaststroke Victory Ceremony - Paris La Defense Arena, Nanterre, France - August 01, 2024. Silver medallist Tatjana Smith of South Africa celebrates on the podium. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne/File Photo

Sept 22 (Reuters) - Double ⁠Olympic champion Tatjana Smith has announced she ⁠is coming out of retirement and will ‌focus on competing in the 50m breaststroke at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

The South African won the 200 title ​at the Tokyo Olympics and ⁠followed that up with ⁠the 100 gold in Paris three years later, ⁠after ‌which she announced her retirement.

The LA Games is set to feature all ⁠four strokes over 50m after the breaststroke, ​backstroke and ‌butterfly were added to an expanded programme.

"For the ⁠first time ​I am choosing swimming and I am choosing this event and I'm choosing a new event ⁠that has no history, but ​I'll try and write some new history," the 29-year-old said in a video posted on social media ⁠on Monday.

"It scares me, but it also excites me. LA28 is the goal. It is not a promise. I still have to build ​a race, qualify, and earn ⁠my spot back on those blocks. I don't ​know how the story ends, ‌but I know that ​I want to find out."

(Reporting by Aadi Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)

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