South Africa has a new world record holder

After coming agonisingly close to the 100m backstroke record in long course at the Commonwealth Games, South Africa’s Pieter Coetze finally broke through for his first career world record on Friday in Tashkent in Uzbekistan when he swam 22.09 in the 50m backstroke.

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The time eclipsed Kliment Kolesnikov’s 22.11 from 2022 and lowered his own best time that he swam last week at 22.51.

“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.”

Stacked field

Coetze out-raced a stacked field that included Russians Egor Kornev and Pavel Samusenko as well as world record holder Kolesnikov.

Kornev was actually ahead of world record pace at the 25m mark, but mis-timed his finish and finished second at 22.29 while Samusenko was third at 22.35.

Kolesnikov was hardly a factor and finished sixth at 22.88.

 Coetze, 22, is having a career year.

After winning the 100m backstroke world title in 2025, he gave the world record a scare at the Commonwealth Games earlier this summer, swimming 51.7 twice in Glasgow.

Now he officially has ‘world record holder’ attached to his name, which will keep a target on his back for next week in Kazakhstan.

 “I don’t think it changes much,” 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 just keep doing the same.”

Coetzee won $10 000 (R165 000) for setting his world record, on top of prize money he earned for winning the race.

Another South African win

Coetze’s win was followed by fellow South African Michael Houlie winning the 50m breaststroke final at 25.67. That swim puts Houlie 16th all-time, all while battling lower back pain and food poisoning.

 “I think, in spite of all of that, I’ve been able to overcome it and swim the way I swam today,” Houlie said.

“That takes courage, and I’m just … I’m grateful. Grateful to be here.”