The youngest male swimmer in South Africa's Olympic team to Tokyo, Pieter Coetzé, has qualified to compete in four events at the World Short Course Swimming Championships in December 2021.

Impressive is the best way to describe the Tuks swimmer's heroics. Basically, each time he dived in, he swam a personal best time. 

The 17-year won the 50m-backstroke in 23.42s, 0.26s faster than he did last year. He swam 50.98s in the 100m-backstroke, which is a 1.57s improvement. Coetzé won the 100m individual medley in 53.50s. 

Coetzé did not officially compete in the 200m-backstroke, but it did not prevent him from another outstanding performance. He swam 1:51.40 in an individual time trial. It is nearly four seconds faster than the time he swam last year.

In all four events, his times were faster than the World Championships' A-qualifying standards.

He was second in the 50m-butterfly (23.83s) as well as the 50m-freestyle (21.99s)

When asked how his speedy exploits came about, it seems as if it was a case of if, at first, you don't succeed, try, try and try again. Coetzé credits his performance to the lessons learned during the Tokyo Olympics. 

"The greatest thing about the Games is that I got to see how the world's top swimmers go about doing things. I even got to talk to a few of them. 

"The mistake I made in Tokyo was to overthink things before I got to compete. I was really stressed two days before the 100m-backstroke heats, but I was as calm as can be on race day. That was not good. You need to be a bit nervous before competing. It is what gets the adrenaline pumping.

"I was highly motivated coming back from the Olympic Games. It led to me putting in the long hard hours in the buildup to the short course championships. My coach, Rocco (Meiring), made me work quite a bit to improve my turns. We also worked to improve the technique of my underwater kick. It is crucial when competing in a 25-metre pool. In the end, it paid dividends. I was much faster." 

Coetzé might only be 17, but it does not mean he will limit himself when it comes to setting goals. He believes that if he gets to swim the perfect race, he can qualify to swim a final.

"But first and foremost, my goal will be to see if I can swim personal best times in each event. If I do, I will be happy."

Judging by the FINA-rankings Coetzé best events at the World Championships in Abu Dhabi will be 50m-backstroke and 200m-backstroke. He is ranked 16th in the longer event and 30th over 50 metres.