Coetze continues his golden march in Glasgow

The Pieter Coetze juggernaut gathered even more momentum when he added the 200m backstroke gold medal to the 50m backstroke gold at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow on Sunday night.

There are no signs of it slowing down either. With those two golds in the bank, on a night in the Tollcross International Swimming Centre when Team SA added another three to the six they’d started with, the 22-year-old looks odds-on favourite to add the 100m backstroke to complete a golden full house.

He had reached halfway in the 200m under world record pace (54.47sec) and then gutsed out the second half to win in a Games record 1min 54.22sec. His winning margin was 2.22sec ahead of silver medallist Oliver Morgan of England.

Victory was never in doubt and afterwards he admitted that his plan was to go out fast and blow the opposition away. We should be in for a treat when the 100m comes round because he also warned, “in general the more I race the better I get. I’ll be better at the small things later in the week”.

“I felt the pain in the second half of the race, but that was the plan (to go out fast). That’s the long-term strategy. I wanted to hold on better, but often the wins in the big championships come with slower times. But I’m trying to get used to going out fast and then holding on, so hopefully I’ll be able to get the world record in the future.

“The two main ambitions I have is to win Olympic gold and break the world record, in that order. An Olympic gold is forever, but world records get broken.” As do Commonwealth Games records and he now has broken them three times in the 50m and once in the 200m.

Coetze’s gold was one of three medals won by Team SA on the night.

Aimee Canny stormed to the silver medal in the women’s 100m breaststroke, in 1:06.19, with Kaylene Corbett (1:07.61) and Rebecca Meder (1:07.68) in sixth and seventh positive, respectively.

Canny is a recent convert to breaststroke and afterwards she conceded, “now I feel like I’m a breaststroker”. She follows a rich line of major championship medallists in the stroke. The likes of Penny Heyns, Sarah Poewe, Tatjana Smith and Lara van Niekerk have all starred on the international stage and now the 22-year-old Canny can add her name to that list.

“I’m super happy with that. I think I might have been a bit excited in the first 50m and hurt in the last 25m or so but for my first senior international individual medal I’m super proud of that race. The 100m breast is a new event for me and hopefully I can take the positives from the race and build on it for the future,” Canny said.

The third medal was a little more unexpected but fully deserved and Olivia Nel was fighting back the tears after taking bronze from lane two in the women’s 100m backstroke, in 1:00.09.

“I’m so excited, I feel quite emotional. That race was challenging for me but I am so proud of myself, it feels good. My goal was to go out with enough to come back with. I paced things pretty well going out and had enough to speed up at the end. I tweaked things from yesterday. My parents were in the stands, my twin sister was in the stand and I know South Africa was behind me. So to achieve something for my family and for my country is just awesome.”

Elsewhere, Michael Houlie took down the sport’s breaststroke GOAT, Adam Peaty-Ramsay and he will start Monday’s 50m breaststroke final as the favourite, taking off from lane four with the English legend next to him. Houlie has long been touted as a major event champion-in-waiting and he has shown this week that no one can live with him over 50m. “It’s always an honour to race next to him but I think at the end of the day it’s more racing against myself and I’ll give my best effort.”

Calvyn Justus had got himself into the 50m freestyle splash and sprint final and he finished fifth in 22.17 as Australia claimed a 1-2-3, with Cameron McEvoy winning in a Games record 20.97.