South Africa’s Pieter Coetze Out Of World Championships With COVID

2022 FINA WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS

• June 18-25, 2022 (pool swimming)
• Budapest, Hungary
• Duna Arena
• LCM (50-meter format)
• Meet Central
• SwimSwam Preview Index

As the start date for the 2022 FINA World Aquatics Championships draws nearer, so does the number of athletes withdrawing from the meet due to injuries, sickness, or otherwise.

Great Britain’s Duncan Scott announced yesterday that he would not be racing in Budapest due to needing more recovery time from his bout with COVID-19 and now the virus has stricken another swimmer.

South Africa’s Pieter Coetze, one of the nation’s most promising young stars who became an Olympian last year at 17, has withdrawn from Worlds due to testing positive for COVID-19.

Along with teammates Rebecca Meder and Dune Coetzee, Coetze achieved World Championships-qualifying marks in 3 individual events. The teen was set to swim the 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke, with the latter representing his strongest event. Coetze currently ranks 11th in the world in the 200m back with his time of 1:56.92 produced at the South African Championships this past April.

Regarding his symptoms, Coetze told SwimSwam, “I had a sore throat and coughed a bit last week but nothing too serious…right now my nose is just a bit stuffy but I trained right through and was ready to go.”

Coetze told SwimSwam about his missing the meet, “Obviously very disappointing; the last few days were tough because I wasn’t sure if I was going or not, I kept testing and testing hoping for negative. Today was the last chance and they said I’m still positive. Feels good to know for sure, but disappointing because I have big plans.

“But I’m glad it happened now and not for Commonwealth Games.”