Pieter Coetzé earns podium seeding after tight 100m backstroke semifinals
The South African, who set a 51.99 world lead at the World Student Games in Germany just more than a week ago, touched second in the second heat in 52.29sec, behind Hungarian Hubert Kos, the Olympic champion in the 200m backstroke, in 52.21.
Russian Kliment Kolesnikov won the first semifinal in 52.26, just nine-hundredths of a second ahead of the Olympic champion in this event, Italy's Thomas Ceccon, also owner of the 51.60 world record who kept enough in reserve to clinch bronze in the 50m butterfly half an hour later.
Just 0.36sec — or the blink of an eye — separated the eight fastest swimmers, who included Oliver Morgan of Britain (52.41), Apostolos Chrisou of Greece (52.44), Frenchman Yohann Ndoye-Brouard (52.47) and Russia's Miron Lifintsev (52.57).
It's probably the greatest depth of competition a South African swimmer has ever faced.
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