Cape Town - South Africa's Tatjana Schoenmaker won her first FINA Swimming World Cup gold medal in the opening leg of the series in Tokyo on Friday.
Schoenmaker romped to gold in the women's 200m breaststroke with a World Cup record-breaking time of 2:22.35, shattering 0.52 seconds from Viktoria Gunes' time of 2:22.87 in 2015.
Japan's Reona Aoki took silver in 2:24.33 and Spain's Jessica Vall Montero rounded up the podium with bronze in 2:25.32.
Schoenmaker will take in the women's 100m breaststroke on Saturday.
South Africa’s???? Tatjana Schoenmaker wins the Women’s 200m Breaststroke in style!#SWC19 #SWIMMING pic.twitter.com/FFlYlWV7MW
— FINA (@fina1908) August 2, 2019
Three new World Cup records have been set up after just one day of competition in Tokyo.What can we expect for today? ?? ???? Shoenmaker: 200m Breast???? Rapsys: 400m Free???? Shymanovich: 100m breast #SWC19 #swimming pic.twitter.com/BwnmjE2MBF
— FINA (@fina1908) August 3, 2019