I want to compete for SA, says Swiss swimmer

It's the story of South African sport. The country's top talent queue up in their droves at Johannesburg International in search of those elusive greener pastures - Stuart Abbott, Michael Catt, Clyde Rathbone, not to forget the one South Africans now love to hate, the infamous Kevin Pietersen.

And ask the latest hero of English cricket if he would ever come back to play for South Africa and he'd most likely laugh out loud.

That's what makes the story of swimmer Alain Tardin so refreshing. He wants to be South African again. The 21 year old has lived in SA all his life but five years ago decided to make the most of his father's Swiss nationality and switched to swim for that country.

"They offered to look after me and support me and there was no way I could say no," explained Tardin, who recently moved to Joburg from Durban to train with Olympic gold medallist Ryk Neethling and his coach Dean Price.

"Switzerland give me money for living expenses and if I need to go to the physio, they pay all my medical bills. If I wake up tomorrow and decide I want to go and compete in Brazil, they will pay for that too."

While Tardin feels that without their support he wouldn't have come as far in the sport as he has, there's still that tug at his heart when he hears the South African national anthem or sees his training partners competing at the Commonwealth Games.

"I've never actually lived in Switzerland so it is strange competing for them, especially when you go to World Championships.

"Every time they say 'Alain Tardin from Switzerland' it just doesn't feel right. I would love to swim for South Africa. That's where my heart is," added the man who claimed gold in both the 50m backstroke and the 100m individual medley at the recent SA Short Course Championships.

"I didn't want to switch, but I felt I had to because of the support system. If I had the same sort of support here, I would definitely change back."

As a holder of both Swiss and South African passports, Tardin does have that option and has discussed the matter with SA's national coaching director Dirk Lange.

"He was very interested in having me back and said he would see what they could do about support, but we are going to leave it until after the world short course championships next year," said Tardin.

Performance manager at Swimming SA Rushdee Warley explained: "Alain has indicated a strong willingness to come back. I'm not sure what Switzerland are offering, but if he meets our criteria of being ranked top-eight in the world in his events, he will fall into the senior elite squad and receive the same kind of support as Ryk and Roland (Schoeman)."

Tardin is not quite top eight just yet but is well on his way there, having come back from a career-threatening shoulder injury. "People thought I would be out for good, so it's great to have come back faster than ever at the short course champs. I just missed the African record in the 50m backstroke."

He was also on world record pace for the first 75m of the 100m individual medley before just letting it slip on the freestyle leg.

And all indications are that there's plenty more to come from the determined Tardin, who would surely be an asset to any South African team.