South Africa's Tatjana Smith retires from swimming after gold and silver in Paris

South Africa swimmer Tatjana Smith announced her retirement from swimming on Thursday night, following her silver medal swim in the 200m breaststroke final at the Paris Olympics.

Taking full advantage of her turning prowess, American Kate Douglass nudged ahead of Smith after every length and held off the South African to touch the wall in 2:19.24 at La Defense Arena.

Having won the 100m breaststroke gold on day three, Smith was bidding to match compatriot Penny Heyns who took both the 100 and 200m golds at the 1996 Atlanta Games and remains the only women's swimmer to do so.

She had to settle for silver but it gave her a total haul of four Olympic medals -- two golds and two silvers -- surpassing Chad le Clos (one gold, three silvers) as South Africa's most decorated Games swimmer.

Smith, who went by Schoenmaker at the time, won gold and silver in Tokyo too, and this Games her 100m gold was Africa's first such medal in Paris.

"It was an amazing race and to end it off with a silver but with a fight was the best way to end it," the 27-year-old told reporters.

"I don't know if I'm going to even look at the pool for the next 10 years.

"It's so hard as a swimmer to actually swim for fun. I don't know why. If there's like a pool party or something, no one wants to swim."

She later added, per Swimming World Magazine : "I'm probably going to miss it. It's 22 years that I've been swimming, and it's been a big part of my family's life and everything.

"My family and everyone knows that it was my last one, just to enjoy that moment together. It was a lot of sacrifice that came from everyone, that our lives had to be put aside for Tatjana's swimming.

"So I think we're all excited to just have a family time without swimming in the back of our minds."

Chad le Clos is still in contention for the record SA medal haul in Paris though, as he swims in the 100m butterfly heats on Friday.

Reuters contributed to this story.