Pieter Coetzee Wraps South African Champs, One of Seven with Cuts
Pieter Coetze wrapped up the South African Senior Championships on Sunday with a fourth World Championships qualifying cut of the meet, one of seven swimmers to book their places in Singapore.
Coetze won the 200 backstroke with ease in 1:56.07. He completed a sweep of all three backstroke distances plus the 50 and 100 freestyle. Coetze joins Matt Sates with the most titles on the men’s side at five each. Coetze was 5.6 seconds ahead of Dylan Wright in the final, with Wright and two others earning Worlds consideration cuts.
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- South African Swimming Night 1 Recap
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- South African Swimming Night 4 Recap
Sates’ bid to add to that fell short Sunday with the 21-year-old finishing fourth in the 50 butterfly, .32 seconds shy of the winning time posted by Joshua Emslie of 24.30.
Coetze has four automatic qualifying times for the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, while Sates hit the auto time in only the 200 individual medley. Rebecca Meder is the only other swimmer over the five days in Gqeberha with multiple auto cuts, pulling the feat in the women’s 200 IM and 200 breaststroke.
Joining them on the final day was Erin Gallagher, who went 25.93 in the women’s 50 fly to get under the auto qualifying standard by three tenths. She skipped the evening final, which was won by Jessica Thompson in 26.47.
Dune Coetzee picked up her fourth title of the meet with a time of 4:11.29 in the 400 freestyle final. She was 1.06 off the A cut and won the event by a margin of more than 4.5 seconds. She was one of six Worlds B cuts. Coetzee also won the 200 free, 800 free and 200 fly. She was third in the 50 fly earlier in the session.
Hannah Pearse had been just fifth in morning prelims but blasted a time of 2:13.13 to win the women’s 200 back. Matthew Caldwell was likewise sixth in prelims of the men’s 400 free before going 3:54.96 to win the final. That’s within a second of his lifetime best of 3:54.27.
South African World Championship qualifiers
- Pieter Coetze: 50m, 100m, 200m backstroke, 50m freestyle
- Matt Sates: 200m individual medley
- Rebecca Meder: 200m individual medley, 200m breaststroke
- Kaylene Corbett: 200m breaststroke
- Chris Smith: 50m breaststroke
- Michael Houlie: 50m breaststroke
- Erin Gallagher: 50m butterfly