Lara bags qualifying time as friends Pieter and Matt begin duel

Double Commonwealth Games champion Lara van Niekerk achieved the first world championship qualifying time of the SA short-course trials in Pietermaritzburg on Thursday, dominating the women’s 100m breaststroke in the morning heats. 

Van Niekerk, who won the 100m and 50m breaststroke at Birmingham 2022, clocked 1 min 04.92 sec, which also ranks her second in the world, though the short-course season has barely begun internationally. 

Italy’s Benedetta Pilato, the reigning 100m long-course world champion and silver medallist ahead of Van Niekerk in 50m breaststroke in Budapest in June, holds the 1:03.69 world lead for this event in a 25-metre pool.

The 1:03.89 SA record from two years ago is held by Tatjana Schoenmaker, who is not competing here.

Pieter Coetzé, who collected gold, silver and bronze in the three backstroke events in England, was in action in the 200m backstroke, but he will also go up against friend Matthew Sates, the short-course star from last year, in the 50m butterfly and 100m individual medley. 

Coetzé and Sates, the top male swimmer of the 2021 World Cup series, overlap on several events and have the potential to develop into one of the great rivalries of SA sport. 

Swimmers have until the end of October to qualify for the global gala in Melbourne in December. The World Cup series kicks off in Berlin on October 21.