50-meter backstroke

TASHKENT – South African swimmer Pieter Coetze has set a new world record in the 50-meter short-course backstroke, swimming a time of 22.09 seconds during the Tashkent World Cup. This time betters the previous mark of 22.11, held by Russia's Kliment Kolesnikov since 2022. After his performance, Coetze confessed: "When I saw the time on the scoreboard, I didn't even realize it was a world record. And then, a second later, I thought… 'The world record was 22.1.' So… there aren't many words to describe it. It's crazy." This result represents the first career world record for Coetze, who in…