Olympic finalist Kaylene Corbett owns unique spot in Tatjana Smith’s shadow

Kaylene Corbett has a unique claim in South African sports history, being the only swimmer — if not all-round competitor — to make an Olympic final yet never win a national title.

Since readmission in 1992, South Africans have competed in 34 swimming finals, winning 16 medals, the most by any code.

But even those who didn’t make Games podiums still won titles at the national championships, except for Corbett, a 200m breaststroke specialist who has competed in the shadow of Tatjana Smith.

The two are training partners at Tuks and they shared the podium at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, also swimming together in several finals, including at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and the 2019 world championships.

Corbett laughed this week when asked how many senior national titles she’d won. “Zero, Tats won them all,” she replied, but added quickly it was no hardship on her part.

“It’s an honour for me to have raced with Tatjana. It’s unbelievable for me to say I’ve been there with her in all her major finals except the world championships last year.”

Corbett finished fifth at the Tokyo showpiece, a result she believes doesn’t have to be topped. “Tokyo was such an incredible experience. I’m already so happy,” she said.

Another swimmer looking to achieve a first is Rebecca Meder, who has been in New Zealand training with former national coach Graham Hill.

Her goal is to make the final in the women’s 200m individual medley (IM) — which would make her the first South African woman to reach the final of any IM event at an Olympics (Chad le Clos and Terence Parkin competed in the 400m IM, both ending fifth, and Le Clos also qualified for the 200m IM final in 2012, but scratched to focus on the 100m butterfly).

“I’m back on track. It’s been going well,” said Meder, who underwent emergency surgery after her appendix burst four weeks before the national championships in Gqeberha.

There she swam an easy 50m backstroke heat to fulfil the Olympic selection criteria that requires swimmers to participate at the South African championships.

“I’m back to where I was as if I hadn’t had appendicitis. I’m excited to see what I’ll do racing. I have a passion, I have a dream and nothing will get in my way. My dreams are scary.

“It scares me to say I want to make an Olympic final. I know the time I need to do, but my family believe in me, my coach believes in me,” said Meder, who has a 2min 10.95sec personal best.

She’ll probably need to take at least half-a-second off that to make the top eight.

Aimee Canny, an economics major at the University of Virginia, is looking to improve her 1:56.80 best in Paris.

“I would like a personal best,” said Canny, the only US-based swimmer on the South African Olympic team.

There was a time when the US-based swimmers dominated South African swimming, but that has changed in the past 12 years.

Canny, however, has not looked back since making the move. “This is the happiest I’ve been and that’s probably why I’m swimming my fastest. We’ve got quite a few US Olympians on our [college] team,” she added.

The trio have all swum for the national women’s 4x100m medley relay team, which narrowly missed out on qualifying for Paris.

Canny said the relay had been a topic of conversation. “We’ve spoken about it. We’ve just got to get it right for Los Angeles [2028].”