Three decades after redefining breaststroke dominance at the Olympic Games, Penelope ‘Penny’ Heyns’ historic double gold remains unparalleled in female swimming.
The South African icon has forged a new path for swimmers on the African continent with her breakthrough performance at Atlanta 1996, where she became the first athlete ever to win the 100m and 200m breaststroke gold medals at the same Olympics. Her incredible feat instilled African swimmers, both male and female, with the belief that they could hold their own against the best in the world.
Heyns paved the way for the likes of Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry, Africa’s most decorated Olympian and now the IOC President, and later fellow South African swimmer Tatjana Smith (nee Schoenmaker) to dominate in the pool at the global showpiece.
“I feel extremely blessed. I’ve had people ask me, ‘Don’t you wish you were swimming today with all the opportunities and financial rewards?’” Heyns told Olympics.com.
“And my answer was no. I’m very happy I swam in the era in which I swam. It was a very special time for us (in South Africa) with Nelson Mandela just becoming president. His passion for sport was genuine, it wasn’t like a president being informed by a staff member that someone had done something. He took a very personal approach to us athletes. That was very special. I don’t think it can ever be matched.”
Sport providing a roadmap to unify a divided nation
Competing at her second Olympics, just four years after South Africa was readmitted to international sport, Heyns was swimming at a time when the country was still finding its footing on the global stage.
South Africa returned to international competition at the Barcelona 1992 Games, competing under the Olympic flag as the country transitioned from its Apartheid past into a new democratic future.
Distance runner Elana Meyer ushered in a new era, winning South Africa’s first post-Apartheid Olympic medal with her silver in the women’s 10,000m. Heyns made her Olympic debut at the Games as the youngest member of the South African team at 17 years of age. She finished 33rd in the women’s 100m breaststroke and 34th in the 200m.
Four years later, Heyns claimed her own slice of history, becoming the first South African since Joan Harrison in Helsinki 1952 to win a gold medal, with her world-record-breaking swim in the 100m breaststroke.
Mandela, South Africa’s first democratically elected President, acknowledged Heyns’ incredible achievement in a message he sent her at the time: “You have done our country proud. You are our golden girl.”
Two days later, Heyns achieved another first. Never before has a swimmer won both breaststroke events at the same Olympics. That is, until Heyns secured the golden double by defeating the 14-year-old American Amanda Beard for the second time in as many finals.
While South Africa’s fragile democracy was still finding its feet, Heyns and the nation’s sporting fraternity showed that it belonged in the global community despite decades of isolation. Sport provided a roadmap for how the newly found ‘Rainbow Nation’ could be unified.
read more: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/african-blueprint-interview-pool-continent-penny-heyns
