Newly crowned world 100m backstroke champion Pieter Coetz scraped into Thursday evenings 200m backstroke semifinals by the narrowest of margins to keep his dreams of winning two or even three medals alive.
Coetz ended sixth in his morning heat in 1 min 57.11 sec to clinch the final 16th semifinal spot, just four-100ths of a second quicker than Olympic 100m backstroke champion Thomas Ceccon of Italian, making a rare tilt at the eight-lap race.
At the front of the field was Canadian Blake Tierney in 1:55.17, but safely tucked in the bunch were all three medallists from the 2024 Games in Paris Hungarys champion Hubert Kos 1:56.71, Apostolos Siskos of Greece 1:56.55 and Roman Mityukov of Switzerland 1:56.15.
And it wasnt as if Coetz was taking it particularly easy at the Olympics he was the third fastest in the heats in 1:56.92 and his time on Thursday would have been seventh quickest in France. The 16th-quickest semifinal qualifier then went 1:57.98.
The standard of backstroke racing has gone up in a year.