Coetzé, Van Niekerk finish fourth as SA ends Doha campaign with single medal

South Africa’s world championship campaign in Doha ended with two podium misses on Sunday night as Pieter Coetzé and Lara van Niekerk both finished fourth in their sprint races.

Coetzé, who landed the country’s only medal of the showpiece with bronze in the 200m backstroke, touched in 24.59 sec, 15-hundredths of a second behind third-placed Ksawery Masiuk of Poland.

Australian Isaac Cooper won in 24.13, with American Hunter Armstrong, the 100m backstroke champion in Doha, second in 24.33.

Coetzé’s 24.36 best would have been good enough for bronze.

Van Niekerk, the bronze medallist in this event in 2022, was way off her best, reaching the wall in 30.47, well behind third-placed Italian Benedetta Pilato in 30.01.

Defending champion Ruta Meilutyte of Lithuania won in 29.40 with China’s Qianting Tang, the 100m breaststroke champion, taking silver in a 29.51 Asian record. 

The South African team was without Olympic queen Tatjana Schoenmaker and her 200m breaststroke training partner Kaylene Corbett, who like many stars from around the world decided to give this a miss.

Coetzé is probably the best-primed of the young guns, though he too will have to make some solid improvements over the next few months.

His medal-winning time in Qatar would have earned him sixth spot at last year’s world championships. 

Van Niekerk and Matthew Sates have some work to do if they want to challenge for silverware at the Paris Olympics from July 27 to August 11.

But Van Niekerk’s coach, Eugene da Ponte, was upbeat about his charge’s prospects, pointing out she is roughly in the same form this time last year, her breakout season where she won the Commonwealth Games breaststroke double. 

“I think we if we’d had another week or two it could have made a massive difference to the preparation for this gala. But we’ve got another big four-week block of training when we get back before national championships. So hopefully we’ll be able to get back to the 1:05 levels by nationals.”

The local championships in April, which also serve as Olympic trials, will show who is on track for Paris, probably more so than Doha has.

“After nationals we’ve got another big two blocks of training ahead of us ... if everything goes according to plan we still have enough time to get her back to where she needs to be in time for the Olympics.”