Beaten Brad Tandy hands sprint baton to young Pieter Coetzé

Teenager Pieter Coetzé dethroned his mentor and SA’s most recent world-class sprinter, Brad Tandy, to lift the SA 50m freestyle crown in Gqeberha on Sunday night. 

Tandy, who gets married in two weeks, flew into the city from his home in Phoenix, Arizona, only on Sunday morning, in time for the heats. 

The 30-year-old got off to his trademark lightning start in the final, but Coetzé, who scratched from the 200m backstroke to focus on this race, hunted him down to win in 22.34sec. 

Tandy, a former winner at the US collegiate NCAA championship gala and the second-fastest South African with a 21.70sec personal best, touched second in 22.49. 

Then he swam over to Coetzé and congratulated him. “He said, ‘Well done, it’s all yours now — take it from here’,” said the lanky 17-year-old, a pupil at Cornwall Hill College in Centurion. 

It quickly became clear to the swimmers and coaches in the stands at the Newton Park pool that Tandy had retired, giving him generous applause as he walked across the deck a final time. 

“Quite an emotional one for me,” Tandy said. “They always say starting is the hard part, but they don’t really give you a heads up on the finish. 

“I was going to be happy with whatever I swam — just to be back here in SA, seeing the crowd. I didn’t win it but I still get the applause. It just shows I’m respected for my character, not so much on my results, so that means a lot to me.”

His one major accomplishment was continuing the proud SA tradition of freestyle sprinting, becoming the fourth man from the country to compete in an Olympic 50m final; he finished sixth at the Rio Games, giving SA, at the time, a representative in the line-up at six of the seven showpieces since readmission.

Tandy failed to progress beyond the heats in Tokyo.

“It’s just time, it’s the next chapter of my life. To be honest, the little boy from Ladysmith, what I’ve achieved has surpassed all goals that I set out to achieve. I’ve been blessed in the sport,” added Tandy, who plans to work in his father-in-law’s nursery company on top of coaching. 

Coetzé, also winner of the 50m backstroke and third in the 50m butterfly here, was surprised by Tandy’s decision.

“To race Brad was awesome, and very emotional to see him finishing. He’s one of the greatest guys in the world of swimming. He’s an amazing swimmer and I really got to know him in the village in Tokyo.”

Coetzé is a backstroke specialist who dabbles in the freestyle on the side, but he had clocked 22.15 on the first leg of the 4x50m freestyle relay on Saturday night, a world championship qualifying time, and he wanted to give this a full tilt. 

“I saw that the 50m [freestyle] would be very close after [the 200m backstroke final] tonight so I had to choose between the two and I thought it might be nice to try dip under 22 [seconds]. 

“I went for it, I unfortunately didn’t get it. But I have a 200 [backstroke] time trial tomorrow to see where I am at with that. I’ll try go out a bit harder than this morning and see what happens.” 

Coetzé went 1min 59.29sec in the morning heats, short of the 1:58.07 qualifying time.

In his absence Ruan Ras won the men’s 200m backstroke in 2:05.03.

Michaela Pulford won the women’s 800m freestyle; Olivia Nel, daughter of former swim star Annette Cowley, claimed the women’s 50m backstroke; and Dune Coetzee was first in the women’s 200m butterfly. 

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