Athens, 19 August 2004, Games of the XXVIII Olympiad. Men's swimming: Roland Mark SCHOEMAN of South Africa winner of the first 50m freestyle semifinal. Credit: IOC/MIFUNE Takamitsu

Other names: SCHOEMAN, Roland

Born: 3 July 1980

Birthplace: Pretoria, Afrique du Sud

Nationality: Afrique du Sud

Sport: Aquatics

ATTENDANCE AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES

Sydney 2000

Athens 2004

AWARDS

Olympic medals:

Gold: 1

Silver: 1

Bronze: 1

South African Swimming Breakthrough

Roland Schoeman first took up swimming to impress a prospective girlfriend. He was good enough at the sport to qualify for the Olympics in 2000, and participated in the 50m and 100m freestyle, without being able to qualify for the finals. At the 2001 world championships, he earned a bronze medal in the 50m freestyle, but his greatest success would come at the 2004 Athens Olympics. In the 4x100m freestyle relay, Schoeman, swimming the leadoff leg, put the South African team into a lead that they would never relinquish. Schoeman was followed in the pool by Lyndon Ferns, Darian Townsend and Ryk Neethling. When Neethling touched the wall to complete the race, the South Africans had not only won by 1.19 seconds, they had broken the world and the olympic records set at the last Olympics. Schoeman went on to take two more medals in individual events. In the 100m freestyle, he was just edged at the end by Pieter van den Hoogenband, who beat Schoeman by only six hundredths of a second. Schoeman completed his set of medals with a bronze in the 50 freestyle, finishing only nine hundredths of a second behind winner Gary Hall.