Pieter Coetzé always knew he was going to break a world record. It was more a case of when, not if.
The 22-year-old swimming sensation even admitted a few years ago that he might be delusional when making that prediction, but that never dimmed his confidence. And sure enough, it turns out he was right all along. But he never would have guessed the first one would come in the 50m backstroke in a 25m pool.
With the 50m backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly included in the Olympic programme for the first time in 2028, Coetzé clearly started taking the event a little more seriously.
“ The 50 has always been something that I did, and my background when I was a kid was always more sprint training,” he explained.“ I ' m talking when I was like 13, 14. So, I feel like … I ' ve had the speed. It was in the back of my mind when they announced that it ' s an Olympic event now, and I was like, it would be nice to be able to do all three backstroke races.”
Just a few of weeks ago, Coetzé blew away the competition in the second leg of the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup series in Uzbekistan, setting a world record of 22.09 seconds. The mark has since been lowered again by China’ s Xu Jiayu to 22.03, but that will just make the South African even hungrier to do it again.
“ Honestly, if you ask me to rank which world record I’ d think I ' d break first, the 50 back short course would probably be the last one that I would put on the list. So, I ' m pretty shocked at it as well,” he admitted the day after setting the new mark.
Coetzé will head into the LA Olympics in 2028 as one of South Africa’ s top medal prospects, along with former training partner Tatjana Smith, who announced her return to competition in September. And while that’ s contested in a 50m pool rather than 25m like the recent World Cups, he’ ll fancy a crack at the long course world record as well – in all three distances.
Once again, confidence is key and he’ s certain he can maintain his consistency until then.“ I have to believe that. I think if I didn ' t believe that I would be in trouble,” he said.
“ But only if I keep doing the work and doing what ' s necessary. So [ coach ] Rocco [ Meiring ] and I always sit down and plan ahead to make sure that I still get enough training done in between these meets and things. And next year will definitely be a bit more of a training year, I think, building up to the Olympics the year after, because that ' s what all of this is for, that ' s what we ' re looking forward to. So, I back myself to stay consistent.”
taking on all the backstroke distances and has yet to decide about the 100m individual medley. It’ s another event he took on for fun at the World Cups and came away with a bronze medal from the first leg in Azerbaijan.
“ It ' s a really fun event, 100 IM, and I was surprised at that time because I think I dropped like a second and a half [ off my PB ] at the first leg … The breaststroke does cost me. The guys catch me on the breaststroke, but I ' m really good on the fly and back, and the free I ' m pretty average in the last leg of the IM. So it ' s basically just for fun. I really enjoy doing it. I ' ll see if I do it at worlds, I ' m not sure.”
Either way, Coetzé heads to Beijing as the man to beat when it comes to backstroke, and ominously for his rivals, he’ s aiming to go even quicker.
“ It ' s definitely a different feeling to anything else that I ' ve accomplished so far. I don ' t know if it ' s fully sunk in yet, but breaking a world record, I feel, definitely does elevate it to a new level.” Coetzé notched up a total of 10 medals across the three legs of the World Cup circuit, eight of them gold, and held his nerve in the final race of the series to beat Russian Egor Kornev to the overall World Cup title.
The young star first announced himself on the South African swimming scene as a 16-yearold when he qualified for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 in the 100m backstroke. He went on to win Commonwealth Games gold in the 100m backstroke in 2022 and then a first world title in 2025 – also in the 100m. He’ s also excelled over 200m, so the 50m event was more something he added for fun.
But the TUKS psychology student has already shown glimpses of what he could do in the shorter event, winning silver at the 2025 World Championships and then completing a clean sweep of all three distances at this year’ s Commonwealth Games.
Before that, however, Coetzé will head to Beijing this December for the World Short Course Championships from 1-6 December, hoping to carry his form from the World Cups. He’ ll be
Other podium performances at the Swimming World Cups
Coetzé was not the only South African swimmer to grace the World Cup podium. Also making his mark was Cape Town star Michael Houlie, who secured a gold and a silver medal in the 50m breaststroke.
Aimee Canny, Matthew Caldwell and Rebecca Meder were the other South Africans to walk away with medals. Canny took bronze in the 100m breaststroke in Baku, Caldwell claimed bronze in the 400m freestyle in Tashkent, where Meder also secured bronze in the 200m individual medley.
“ I think it ' s a very good sign. I think we ' re probably in a better place as a country in swimming than we ' ve been for a long time,” reckoned Coetzé.“ I love seeing others performing well, and it ' s not only those swimmers who are winning medals, but also the swimmers who aren ' t winning medals yet, but are getting there. They are also swimming best times … Hopefully we can carry the momentum forward, and it would be awesome to have some relays that can compete at an international level. Everything ' s looking really good and I think the team is also starting to believe in themselves more, the more success that we get.”
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