Coetze denied another gold medal in pulsating backstroke final as Corbett snatches bronze
Pieter Coetzé narrowly missed out on a second gold medal at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore in Friday's 200m backstroke final, while Kaylene Corbett took bronze in the women's 200m breaststroke final.
Coetzé eventually had to settle for silver behind Olympic champion Hubert Kόs of Hungary.
The Pretoria swimmer went out hard in the final, turning first at both the 50m and 100m marks under world record pace, but was hunted down in the second half of the race by Kόs.
South Africa's newly crowned 100m backstroke world champion came back at Kόs in the final metres of the race. He touched the wall in a time of 1:53.36, just 0.17 seconds slower than Kos (1:53.19). Yohann Ndoye-Brouard of France took the bronze in 1:54.52.
Coetzé's time took almost a second off the African record he set in the semifinals and is the seventh-fastest time in history. Both Kόs and Coetzé's times beat Kόs' gold medal-winning time from last year's Olympic Games in Paris.
'Coming into this, I didn't really expect to go that fast. This has exceeded all my expectations and it's just a big honour to be in a race like that,' said an elated Coetzé afterwards.
'I kind of expected to be out very fast. I could feel that I was moving at a high pace, and I knew that I would feel it in the end, and I did. But it's a big PB for me so I'm super-happy with the time.'
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