Pieter Coetzé has done it again. Less than 24 hours after breaking the Commonwealth Games record to win 50m backstroke gold, the 22 year old backed it up with another Games record and another title, this time over 200m, at Tollcross on Sunday night.
Pieter Coetzé led the 200m backstroke final from the first stroke, swimming out of lane five and never looking troubled as he touched in 1:54.22.
That time erased a Games record that had stood since Delhi 2010, and it upgraded the bronze he collected in this exact event at Birmingham four years ago into gold.
It’s his second gold of Glasgow 2026 and his third medal overall, adding to Friday’s bronze in the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay.
Two individual swims, two Games records, two golds, one South African having the meet of his life.
Saturday’s 50m backstroke gold set the tone. Pieter Coetzé lowered the Games record three times across three swims at the same distance, first in the heats at 24.45, then the semi-final at 24.29, and finally the final itself at 24.18, just 0.01 outside his own African record.
He touched 0.30 seconds clear of England’s Oliver Morgan, with training partner Ruard van Renen taking bronze for an all South African share of the podium behind him.
“Pieter didn’t come to Glasgow to mess around. He came for the gold!” – 🎙️Jay
Birmingham 2022 left Pieter Coetzé with three backstroke medals, gold in the 100m, silver in the 50m, bronze in the 200m, but no sweep.
Glasgow is shaping up to finish that job properly. With the 50m and 200m both banked in gold this time round, only the 100m backstroke stands between him and a clean sweep of every individual backstroke event on the Commonwealth Games programme.
He arrives at that race as the reigning world champion over the distance and the form swimmer of the meet. South Africa has never had a backstroker dominate a single Games quite like this.
📸 Images via Phil Noble / Swimming SA
