The Tuks swimmer, Pieter Coetzee, has set himself the goal of trying to achieve what few South African male swimmers – if any – had been able to do. That is to qualify for the Olympic Games at the age of 16.

He might just succeed in his quest. For the last two years, he had dominated the backstroke-events during local galas. Two weeks ago, during Swim South Africa’s Evaluation Camp Gala in Stellenbosch, he won all three backstroke-events (50m, 100m and 200m). Most of his rivals were older.

Coetzee’s winning time, 55.92s in the 100m-backstroke, is a mere 0.47 slower than FINA’s Olympic B-qualifier. However, he believes he is capable of being faster. According to him, even the A-qualifying standard of 53.85s is doable.

“I did not ease down in the build-up to the Stellenbosch gala. I trained as I usually would, hard and long hours. If I had taken things slightly easier, rested a bit and shaved adequately, I could have swum faster. To swim two seconds faster is not impossible,” Coetzee remarked after the event in Stellenbosch.

Coetzee, however, fully realises being obsessed about a specific time can be a so-called ‘death sentence’ in sport.

“Fast times are important, but my main aim during the trials is to win the 100m-backstroke. If everyone in the final is 100% committed, anything can happen. Who knows, there might even be an Olympic qualifying time. If I am the one to swim it, it certainly will boost my chances of being selected for South Africa’s 4x100m-relay team.  The experience I would gain from competing against the world’s best at the Olympics will stand me in good stead,” Coetzee explained.

During last year’s South African Swimming Shortcourse Championships in Pietermaritzburg, Coetzee won the 50m and the 100m-backstroke events and was second in the 200m-backstroke. In doing so, he set B-qualifying times for this year’s World Short Course Championships.

Coetzee’s first showed signs of being a champion in the making during the 2019 South African Championships (50m pool). As a 14-year-old, he finished third in the 50m-backstroke and fourth in the 100m-backstroke. The same year he won the 100m-breaststroke at the South African Short-course Championships (25m pool) and was second in the 50m-event.

During the African Junior Championships in Tunisia, he won five gold medals. At the World Junior Championships in Budapest, the Tuks swimmer set personal best times in each of the backstroke events. He missed out by a mere 0.06s to compete in the final of the 50m-backstroke.

Despite all these results, Coetzee remains realistic.

“I am not yet South Africa’s top backstroke swimmer. Christopher Reid, who holds the South African 100m-backstroke record (53.12s) and studies in the USA is,” he commented.

An interesting fact is that Chad le Clos was 20 when he represented South Africa in 2012 in London at the Olympic Games for the first time. Cameron van der Burgh was the same age when he did so in 2008 in Beijing.

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