South Africa: After Tatjana Smith and Kaylene Corbett, Pieter Coetze from Team South Africa has won heat-02 in the Swimming Men’s 200m Backstroke to secure a spot in the semi-finals, at Paris Olympics 2024.
The swimmer will compete for old at the finals on Thursday night, otherwise a personal best time won’t matter for team South Africa, unless it is accompanied by a medal.
Reportedly, Coetze is one of three South Africans fighting for a place on the podium in the pool on Thursday. Smith and Corbett have also qualified for the 200m breaststroke final, at Paris Olympics 2024.
This time it will be the 20-year-old Coetze’s second final this week after finishing fifth with a personal best time in the 100m backstroke. It went a little unnoticed, after Tatjana Smith’s heroic performance in the pool when she grabbed the gold in the 100m breaststroke on the same night.
As per the further reports, Coetze now aims for a medal who have qualified as the third fastest swimmer from the two semi-finals, as he can put his own name in lights in Paris.
However, for Pieter Coetze it won’t matter if he swims a personal best time or not, as long as, he gets on that podium.
Considering this, the backstroke swimmer said that everyone has always talked about times, but he can promise that none of these swimmers cared about their times.
“Maybe in the back of their minds they do, but they had rather swim a slower time and win a medal than swim their PB,” stated Coetze.
He further added to his statement that speaking for himself, swim the PB and get fifth place, he would rather swim slow and get a medal. One would never know what to expect, as he’s just going to let it happen.
Coetze’s 200m backstroke final is scheduled for the time 8:38 p.m. on Thursday, August 01, 2024 while Smith and Corbett are set to compete in the 200m breaststroke final at 9:11 p.m. on the same day.