Pieter Coetzé broke the 50m backstroke world record and won all three backstroke titles at the second stop of the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup, where Michael Houlie claimed his first World Cup gold and South Africa closed the three days with six medals.
Coetzé’s 22.09 on Friday 9 October took 0.02 off the mark Kliment Kolesnikov had held since November 2022, and it was the first world record of the 22-year-old’s career. It also erased the World Cup record of 22.23 that Egor Kornev set in Baku a week earlier, and it cut 0.42 off Coetzé’s own African record of 22.51 from that same opening stop.
Every race on this circuit is swum short course, in a 25-metre pool rather than the 50-metre pool used at the Olympics, so the times stand apart from long-course marks entirely. NBC Sports reported that Coetzé is the first man representing an African nation to break a swimming world record since Chad le Clos in 2016.
How Did Pieter Coetzé Break The 50m Backstroke World Record?
He did it on the back half. Coetzé turned at the 25-metre mark in 10.92, eight hundredths down on Kornev, and came home in 11.17 to beat a final that also had Kolesnikov in it.
- Pieter Coetzé (RSA) — 22.09, world record
- Egor Kornev (RUS) — 22.29
- Pavel Samusenko (RUS) — 22.35
“It didn’t even click that it was a world record.” – Pieter Coetzé
The 100m Backstroke That Finished Five Hundredths Short
Coetzé went after a second global mark on the Saturday and missed it by 0.05. He turned in 22.95, twelve hundredths inside Hubert Kós’s pace from the Toronto stop in 2025, then lost ground at the final turn and touched in 48.21 against Kós’s record of 48.16.
The swim was an African record, a personal best by 0.9 seconds and the second-fastest 100m backstroke ever swum. It was also his third gold of the stop, and it was not close: Samusenko took silver almost a second back.
- Pieter Coetzé (RSA) — 48.21
- Pavel Samusenko (RUS) — 49.17
- Jan Cejka (CZE) — 49.84
The backstroke treble had started on the opening night, when Coetzé led the 200m backstroke from the first length and won in 1:49.32 ahead of Canada’s Blake Tierney and Cejka.
“I don’t know if it’s fully sunk in yet.” – Pieter Coetzé
“Pieter and Michael are just performing unbelievably well for South Africa. Pieter is in a class of his own! Well done, boys!” – 🎙️Jay
Michael Houlie Wins His First Swimming World Cup Gold
Houlie had finished second in the 50m breaststroke in Baku. He went one better on the Friday night, touching in 25.67 to beat Kirill Prigoda by fifteen hundredths, with Caspar Corbeau third and Baku champion Qin Haiyang fourth. It was the first World Cup victory of his career, and TimesLive placed the swim 16th on the all-time list.
He swam it while carrying lower back pain and food poisoning.
“That takes courage, and I’m just… I’m grateful.” – Michael Houlie
- Michael Houlie (RSA) — 25.67
- Kirill Prigoda (RUS) — 25.82
- Caspar Corbeau (NED) — 25.92
South Africa’s Six Medals At The Second Stop
Matthew Caldwell opened the account on day one in the 400m freestyle, and Rebecca Meder closed it on the final evening, taking bronze in the 200m individual medley behind China’s Yu Yiting and Britain’s Abbie Wood after qualifying fastest from the heats.
- 🥇 Pieter Coetzé — 50m backstroke, 22.09
- 🥇 Pieter Coetzé — 100m backstroke, 48.21
- 🥇 Pieter Coetzé — 200m backstroke, 1:49.32
- 🥇 Michael Houlie — 50m breaststroke, 25.67
- 🥉 Rebecca Meder — 200m individual medley, 2:06.86
- 🥉 Matthew Caldwell — 400m freestyle, 3:40.95
Four golds and two bronzes from the three days in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, against a field that included Kornev, Kolesnikov, Cameron McEvoy and Carson Foster.
The Title Race Goes To Astana
Swimmers are scored across the series rather than on medals alone, with points for winning a final and further points for how fast the swim rates, which is how a backstroke specialist stays in a fight with an all-round sprinter. Coetzé outscored Kornev 58.7 to 57.4 across the Tashkent programme to win the stop outright, and SwimSwam put his prize money for the weekend at $22,000, the highest of any man at the meet.
That leaves the overall standings this tight with one stop to run.
- Egor Kornev (RUS) — 116.7
- Pieter Coetzé (RSA) — 114.3
- Luke Barr (USA) — 113.0
The circuit — three stops, not a World Championship — ends in Astana, Kazakhstan from 15 to 17 October, with $1.2 million in prize money across the series, wildcard places for the World Aquatics Swimming Championships in Beijing, and a $10,000 bonus for any swimmer who wins the same event at all three stops. Coetzé has won the 200m backstroke in both Baku and Tashkent, and Kós’s 100m backstroke record will be in the water in front of him one more time.
