Defining year for elite women
Tatjana Schoenmaker set the bar with a silver medal at World Champs.
While most of the praise on the sporting field this year belonged to the national men’s rugby team, after they lifted the world title, there was also widespread adulation for the country’s elite women who enjoyed breakthrough seasons across a variety of codes.
Delivering a standout performance, swimmer Tatjana Schoenmaker made history at the Fina World Championships in Gwangju in July, becoming the first SA woman to secure a medal at the biennial showpiece.
Schoenmaker earned silver in the 200m breaststroke final, cementing her place among the contenders for the Olympic podium in Tokyo next year.
The African record holder, representing Tuks, also wrapped up a 100m/200m double in her specialist stroke at the World Student Games in Naples earlier in the year, and she was a worthy recipient of the Sports-Star-of- the-Year and Sportswoman-of-the- Year accolades at the 2019 SA Sport Awards.
Meanwhile, on the track, Caster Semenya’s season was cut short after she was temporarily suspended while awaiting the outcome of a court case as she continued to fight against international gender rules.
Before she was sidelined, however, Semenya proved she was still a dominant force on the global circuit.
Despite missing out on the World Athletics Championships in Doha in September, she won two 800m races in the top-flight Diamond League series earlier in the year and clocked the fastest twolap time in the world this season.
Semenya will be hoping to get the green light from the Swiss Supreme Court to compete next season as she targets her third Olympic title.
Also shining in an individual discipline this year, road cyclist Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio achieved three top-five finishes on the UCI Women’s World Tour.
Riding for the CCC-Liv team, she reached the podium at the Tour of California in May, taking third place in the general classification.
In team sports, the Proteas netball side delivered a historic result at the World Cup in Liverpool in July, reaching the semifinals for the first time in 24 years after beating higher-ranked Jamaica in the group stages.
Their 2019 campaign also included a dominant victory at the Africa Netball Cup in Cape Town in October, and they picked up wins over Commonwealth Games champions England in the Quad Series at the beginning of the season and the Spar Challenge series at the end of the year.
History was also made by Banyana Banyana, who competed at the Fifa Women’s World Cup for the first time.
Though they were unable to win a match in the group stages, Banyana carried themselves well against higher ranked opponents who received far more support from their home federations.
Elsewhere, there was controversy at the end of the year when the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) turned down an invite to the Tokyo Games for the national women’s Sevens rugby team, after they qualified for the multi-sport spectacle by winning the Africa Women’s Sevens tournament in Tunisia in October.
It was revealed, however, that the SA women’s hockey team had been given the green light to compete at the Games after winning the African Olympic qualifying tournament held in Stellenbosch in August.