Gretchen Walsh, Regan Smith and Luke Hobson continue US record binge at short-course swimming worlds
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(From left) Gretchen Walsh, Kate Douglass, Lilly King and Regan Smith of the United States win the gold in the 4x100m medley relay at the World Aquatics Swimming Championships on Dec 15.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
BUDAPEST – Gretchen Walsh set two more world records on Dec 15 on the final evening of competition to take her tally to 11 at the short-course swimming world championships in Budapest, Hungary.
She opened the evening with a world mark in the 50m freestyle and ended it as part of the American 4x100m medley team alongside two more women who set multiple records during the week – Regan Smith, who set an individual world record leading off in the backstroke leg, and Kate Douglass.
Smith had earlier set another world record as she won the 200m backstroke. Luke Hobson set his second world record of the week in the men’s 200m free.
Four Russians, swimming as “neutral athletes”, closed the competition at Duna Arena by breaking the men’s 4x100m medley relay record.
Walsh, 21, collected her sixth gold of the week when she won the 50m freestyle in 22.83 seconds to shave 0.04sec off the record she set in the semi-finals on Dec 14.
“I’m just happy to prove to myself that I’m capable of doing stuff like this,” she said. “I’ve just had a really great week.”
She won her seventh gold when the American women, with Lilly King swimming breaststroke, won their relay in 3min 40.41 seconds, almost four seconds inside the world record of 3:44.35 set by an American quartet that included King and Douglass in Melbourne in 2022.
The records took the tally from six days of competition to 30. Each record brings a US$25,000 (S$33,700) bonus cheque from World Aquatics. Walsh has been cleaning up – although two records were in relay teams.
Smith, who broke the 50m backstroke record on Dec 13, edged out Canadian Summer McIntosh, who has set three world records in Budapest, in the women’s 200m backstroke.
Smith won in 1:58.04, to break the record she set in November by 0.80sec. She completed the sweep of backstroke events in Budapest by finishing 1.92sec ahead of McIntosh, racing backstroke for the first time at a major competition.
“I was aiming for that world record tonight,” the 22-year-old Smith said. “If I need to pick my favourite event, I’d choose this one.”
Home swimmer Hubert Kos won the men’s 200m backstroke in 1:45.65 – a European and championship mark.
Hobson took 0.30sec off the record he set on Dec 13 leading off the American 4x200m freestyle relay, when he won the individual event in 1:38.61.
The Russian quartet won the men’s medley relay in 3:18.68 to beat the old mark of 3:18.98 set by Australia in 2022.
Cayman Islands’ Jordan Crooks was unable to improve on the 50m free record he set twice on Dec 14, in the heats and then, with a time of 19.90sec, in the semi-finals, but he still collected gold in 20.19sec.
Lithuanian Ruta Meilutyte, 27, continued her late-career renaissance with victory in the women’s 50m breaststroke in 28.54sec.
Qin Haiyang rebounded from a disappointing Olympics under the shadow of a doping controversy that engulfed the Chinese team in France to win the men’s breaststroke sprint in 25.42sec.
Siobhan Haughey of Hong Kong won her third women’s 200m freestyle short-course world title in 1:50.62.
The Americans topped the medal table with 18 golds and 39 medals in total. The neutral athletes were a distant second with six golds and 10 medals in all. AFP
