2023 SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, April 12th – Sunday, April 16th
- Newton Park Swimming Pool, Gqeberha, South Africa
- LCM (50m)
- World Championships Qualifier
- Selection Criteria
- SwimSwam Preview
- Psych Sheet
- Results – Meet Mobile: SA National Aquatic SNR-Champ-2023-PE
Through just one day of finals at the 2023 South African National Championships we saw the first national record go down.
Racing in the men’s 100m backstroke today at Newton Park Swimming Pool, 18-year-old Pieter Coetze fired off a new South African standard of 52.78 to grab the gold.
The Cal commit established himself as the top-seeded swimmer out of the heats with a swim of 53.18 before turning it on for the final. En route to gold, Coetze opened in 25.58 and closed in 27.20 to produce the 2nd sub-53-second time of his career.
His new 52.78 PB easily clears the World Aquatics ‘A’ standard of 54.03 needed to qualify for this summer’s World Championships. In fact, Coetze would have placed 7th in the final last year in Budapest.
Coetze’s previous lifetime best and South African national record stood at the 52.95 he put up in the semi-finals at the 2022 World Junior Championships. There in Lima, Peru, he ultimately touched in 52.99 to take the silver behind gold medalist Ksawery Masiuk of Poland who topped the podium in 52.91.
For his 52.78 effort, which also now establishes a new African continental record, Coetze ranks 2nd in the world this season. He sits only behind American Hunter Armstrong who wears the crown, courtesy of his 52.68 from January’s Pro Swim Series in Knoxville.
2022-2023 LCM Men 100 Back
Kolesnikov
51.82
| 2 | Ryan Murphy | USA | 52.04 | 07/30 |
| 3 | Thomas Ceccon | ITA | 52.12 | 07/24 |
| 4 | Xu Jiayu | CHN | 52.26 | 05/03 |
| 5 | Hunter Armstrong | USA | 52.33 | 06/30 |
hopefully Pieter Coetze reconsiders his ring chasing Kevin Durant esque move to go to Cal, NCS seems like a better move the way their backstroke group has been trending
Would hate for Durden to waste another hyper talent
Any one else notice the relay potential South Africa has in the 4×200 free. With canny going 1:57 and the top 4 girls all going 1:59 or lower… if some of them can drop seconde here or there we could be talking world championships relay final?
Dont know if SA has ever achieved that
What happened to the rumors that Matthew Sates was going to Cal?
His GPA said otherwise
They were completely fabricated by Kyle Sockwell to draw attention to his sock account. Like, just generated out of thin air.
He’s basically trying to steal the buttcrack sports model (right down to the name), but he’s not really committing to the bit, so it’s confusing to people.
1:05.89 in April is a pretty strong signal from Schoenmaker.
She was still good but much slower last year than in Tokyo. I suspect rumours of her demise were greatly exaggerated. Can’t wait tor Worlds
She speaks of having a tough time last year. Looks to be on form again now. Can’t wait to see what she does in the 200m
Cal is back.
Cal just repeated as national champs, where exactly are they “back” from?
The other kind of Back.
What a stacked first day tho, Tatjana reclaiming her national title in the 100m breastroke…. and a wonderfully close battle with Lara van Niekerk.
This is only the beginning, I think South Africa 🇿🇦 has a legend in the making!