Pieter Coetzé wins the short-course World Cup overall title in Astana

Pieter Coetzé ended the short-course World Cup series as its overall men's champion on Saturday night, winning the 50m backstroke in Astana, Kazakhstan, to edge Russia's Egor Kornev for the title.

Coetzé, 22, turned behind Estonia's Ralf Tribuntsov at halfway and came home in 11.28 for the second length to touch in 22.36. Pavel Samusenko was second in 22.49 and Kornev third in 22.81, TimesLIVE reported. The win left Coetzé on 172.9 points in the men's standings, with Kornev on 170.7.

Every backstroke race on the tour

World Aquatics ran this year's series as the Silk Road Tour, three meets in Baku, Tashkent and Astana. Coetzé won the 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke at all three.

That run paid well. The overall title carries a $100,000 bonus (about R1.65m), and sweeping the 50m backstroke added $10,000. His total prize money for the series came to $162,000, nearly R2.7m.

"I'm very happy with that," Coetzé said. "The standard of the field is high."

A world record a week earlier

The title came eight days after his first world record. In Tashkent on 9 October he swam the 50m backstroke in 22.09, taking down the world record of 22.11 that Kliment Kolesnikov set in 2022. Coetzé's previous best had been 22.51.

"Seeing that time on the board, it didn't even click that it was a World Record," he said afterwards.

On Thursday in Astana he won the 100m backstroke in 48.40, the fourth-fastest time in history. Only Hubert Kós (48.16, the world record), Coleman Stewart (48.33) and Coetzé himself, with his best from a week earlier, have gone faster.

He is already the 2025 world champion over 100m backstroke in the long-course pool, and won the same event at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this year. The overall World Cup crown puts him alongside Ryk Neethling, Cameron van der Burgh, Chad le Clos and Matthew Sates, the South African men who have won the series before him.

The rest of Team SA in Astana

Rebecca Meder was fifth in the women's 200m individual medley in 2:07.27. Michael Houlie finished fifth in the 100m breaststroke after going out in 25.99, the fastest opening 50m recorded in a short-course pool. Matthew Caldwell was sixth in the men's 800m freestyle in 7:52.51.

Next stop, Beijing

The short-course world championships in Beijing run from 1 to 6 December. Coetzé has not yet won a world title in a 25m pool, and he goes there as the short-course world record holder over 50m backstroke.