Pieter Coetzé: South African backstroker making a splash on the global stage

Youngest South African male swimmer at the Olympics

Coetzé was 16 when he qualified and was 17 when he made his debut in Tokyo 2020 becoming the youngest South African male swimmer to compete at an Olympic Games. South African legends Chad le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh were 20 when they represented the country at the Games for the first time in London 2012 and Beijing 2008, respectively.

The towering Coetzé struck a blow for the sport in Rustenburg where “there's no respect for swimming achievements”. At 1.97m, Coetzé had all the attributes for rugby or cricket which he played when he was younger, but he ultimately gravitated towards the pool.

Somewhere along the way something ‘switched’ in Coetzé’s mindset going from participating in local galas to chasing an audacious Olympic dream.

“Every day in the build-up I was visualising myself, qualifying, believing and telling my friends around me that I'm going to qualify. I liked speaking about it and saying that it's going to happen,” Coetzé said.

“When I was younger, I wasn’t thinking like that or believing that I could do something like that. But something switched. I think when I started seeing that my performance was going well, even without me really believing or focusing on training that much. And then I slowly started believing that it is possible.”

His Olympic debut did not quite live up to his expectations with the youngster finishing eighth in his 100m backstroke heat. Coetzé took some valuable lessons from Tokyo 2020 which he used to his advantage over the last few years.

Click here to read article