Schoenmaker and Sates make Swiss cheese of rivals in Lausanne

Olympic queen Tatjana Schoenmaker and world short-course champion Matthew Sates scored preseason victories at an early long-course gala in Lausanne, Switzerland, at the weekend.

At this time of the year swimmers are most likely to be in hard training as they gear up for the world championships in Fukuoka, Japan, in July.

Schoenmaker is looking to improve on the 200m breaststroke silver she won at the 2019 world championships, having skipped last year’s edition to focus on the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Sates is aiming to land his first medals at a major long-course gala.

At the Lausanne Swim Cup at the weekend Schoenmaker reigned supreme in her premier 200m breaststroke event in which she claimed the Tokyo Olympic gold, winning in 2min 24.45sec, well ahead of Martina Carraro of Italy in 2:27.54.

Carraro took the honours in the two shorter breaststroke races, pushing Schoenmaker into second in the 100m in 1:06.97, only 0.13sec behind, and 31.05 in the 50m.

The Tuks superstar got the better of Carraro in the 100m race at the 2019 world championships and again at Tokyo 2020.

Sates, swimming for the Pietermaritzburg Seals club though he has been training at Tuks for the past several weeks, claimed four triumphs and a second place.

He won the freestyle and individual medley races over 200m and 400m, while taking second in the 100m butterfly behind homeboy Noe Ponti, the Olympic bronze medallist.

Sates’ winning times in the individual medley were 1:59.94 and 4:18.86, and in the freestyle 1:47.46 and 3:50.45.

While Sates was well off his 4:11.58 best in the 400m individual medley, and more than two seconds slower than his 200m bests of  best of 1:57.43 (individual medley) and 1:45.91 (freestyle), he was close to his 3:49.27 400m freestyle personal record. 

Expect a big improvement there in the next few months.

Schoenmaker’s 200m breaststroke effort was not far off her winning time at the national championships in April last year, which suggests she is on track to be in good shape when it counts later in the season. 

Even her 100m time should get her rivals taking notice, especially if she has not started focusing on speed work for this season yet. Her 50m best is 30.21, an indication there is plenty more speed to come.

By comparison Carraro’s 30.77 winning time in the 50m breaststroke this weekend was far closer to her 30.23 best.

The 2023 SA championships, which again will be held in Gqeberha in April, will be a better indicator for Schoenmaker, where her best times from 2021 were 1:05.74 and 2:20.17. Last year she went 1:06.06 and 2:24.01.