Pieter Coetze Clocks 1:56.07 200 Back On Final Day Of South African Championships

2025 SOUTH AFRICAN SENIOR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Wednesday, April 9th – Sunday, April 13th
• Newton Park Swimming Pool, Gqeberha, South Africa
• LCM (50m)
• SwimSwam Preview
• Meet Central
• Psych Sheet
• Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap
• Results

The final day of the 2025 South African Senior National Championships brought about another World Championships-qualifying performance.

Racing in the men’s 200m backstroke, Olympic finalist Pieter Coetze stopped the clock at a time of 1:56.07 to get to the wall first.

That easily cleared the World Aquatics ‘A’ standard of 1:58.07 needed to earn a Singapore berth in this event.

20-year-old Coetze’s performance wasn’t far off his lifetime best and South African national record of 1:55.60, an African continental benchmark put on the books at last year’s Olympic Games.

The ace now ranks as the #2 200m backstroke performer in the world this season.

University of Pretoria’s Coetze represented the sole World Championships qualifier on this final day of action.

Jessica Thompson topped the women’s 50m fly podium in 26.47, although a minimum result of 26.23 was needed to add her name to the lineup for Singapore.

Likewise, in the men’s 50m fly, Joshua Emslie stopped the clock at 24.30 when a minimum of 23.36 was required to go to this summer’s World Championships.

Additional winners this evening included Dune Coetzee topping the women’s 400m free podium in a time of 4:11.29 while Matthew Caldwell accomplished the same feat on the men’s side in 3:54.96. Both were short of what was needed to add their names to the South African World Championships lineup.