The Tuks swimmer Pieter Coetze ticked another item off his bucket list by setting a world record in the 50m backstroke in Uzbekistan on Friday.
Coetze won the 50m backstroke (25m pool) in 22.09 seconds at the second leg of the World Aquatics World Series. This is an incredible improvement on his previous personal best. A week earlier, at the first leg of the World Series in Azerbaijan, he set an African record swimming 22.51 seconds.
It would come as no surprise if the 50m backstroke world record fell again in Kazakhstan on Thursday. Coetze’s rivalry with Russian swimmer Egor Kornev is one of the series’ highlights. Kornev’s 22.23-second win in Azerbaijan was also a world record. It would be interesting to know if a single world record has ever been improved three times in three weeks.
When Coetze was asked—following the Glasgow Commonwealth Games—whether world records were a goal, his reply was: “It’s not number one on my list. Times are important; it’s definitely something I’m chasing. Obviously, I’d love to break a few world records, but at the end of the day, winning an Olympic gold medal at the 2028 Los Angeles Games matters more to me.
“At the Games, it’s not about times; it’s about winning. Often, winning times at the Games aren’t that fast. That doesn’t matter, because if you’re an Olympic champion, it’s forever. World records get broken,” said the Tuks swimmer.
The photo taken just after Coetze broke the world record on Friday tells its own story. You can see the joy and disbelief on his face.
“Seeing that time on the board, it didn’t even click that it was a World Record,” Coetze said.
“And then, like, a second later, I was like…’the World Record was 22.1.’ So… not many words to describe that. It’s crazy.”
Coetze, 22, is proving he’s one of the world’s best. After winning the 100m backstroke world title in 2025, he gave the world record a scare at the Commonwealth Games, swimming 51.7s twice in Glasgow. To date, he has won four medals at the World Championships (1 gold, 2 silver and a bronze). Nine medals at the Commonwealth Games (4 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze) and three at the World University Games (2 gold and a silver).
The Olympic Games are the only major international event where he has not yet stood on the podium. Coetze makes no secret of the fact that this is something he wants to put right. His goal is to achieve this in Los Angeles in 2028. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he did; the Tuks swimmer has gone on record saying that whenever he dives in, he swims to win.
In an interview with World Aquatics after setting the world record, Coetze said, “My mindset normally stays the same, no matter what the race is, because, you know, at this level everyone is always close. I mean, the world-record holder was there — and look how close it was. So, no, you can never get too comfortable. I’ll keep doing the same.”
And it’s not just talk. So far, at the first two World Series meets, he has won five of the six finals he competed in. He has already bettered the African record in the 100m backstroke twice. In Azerbaijan, he won in 49.11s, and in Uzbekistan, in 48.21s. His winning times in the 200m backstroke are 1:49.64 and 1:49.32, respectively.
