Kate Douglass scarily fast with women’s 200m breaststroke world record on Halloween night

SINGAPORE – American swimmers Regan Smith and Kate Douglass made a pact to respectively wear contrasting angel and devil headbands during their walkout at the short-course World Aquatics Swimming World Cup on Halloween night.

While Smith upheld her end of the bargain before she won the women’s 50m backstroke final with a personal best of 25.48sec, Douglass did not.

Instead, the 22-year-old put up wicked performances on the first of three nights of star-studded swimming at the OCBC Aquatic Centre, smashing the women’s 200m breaststroke world record, before setting another personal best in the women’s 100m individual medley en route to being awarded two tiaras for her triple crown achievements.

Swimmers can claim a US$10,000 (S$13,200) triple crown bonus if they sweep the same event at all three stops of the World Cup in Shanghai, Incheon and Singapore. Another US$10,000 is awarded for each world record they set, which meant Douglass made US$30,000 in just 30 minutes on Oct 31.

She told The Straits Times: “We were supposed to wear our costumes but I felt good about my 200m breaststroke today, so I didn’t really want any distractions going into that race.

“I knew I had the ability to break that record if I focused on it. And so, I was like, sorry, Regan, I’m not wearing the costume.”

Douglass was peerless in the breaststroke final as she won in a stunning 2min 12.72sec, almost 1.5sec under her old mark of 2:14.16 set in South Korea a week ago. Before that, Rebecca Soni’s 2:14.57 had stood as the world’s fastest time since 2009.

To put things in perspective, second-placed Belarusian Alina Zmushka was more than six seconds behind in 2:18.79, while Australian Tara Kinder was third in 2:19.08.

Half an hour later, Douglass was back to haunt her opponents in the pool as she chased them down in the 100m medley final.

She was still sixth at the halfway mark after the opening butterfly and backstroke legs, but made full use of her breaststroke prowess to surge ahead in the third 25m and maintained her lead in the freestyle to win in 56.57sec, ahead of China’s Yu Yiting (57.44sec) and American Beata Nelson (57.53sec).

Douglass’ victories, which brought her a perfect nine wins in the series and 158.6 points, turned a 0.1-point deficit into a 20.5-point lead over Smith in the overall individual women’s ranking. The winner will pick up US$100,000.

Douglas said: “Obviously it’s a close race between us, but thinking too much about it adds more stress to the weekend. So, I wasn’t really thinking about the money, I just thought about besting my own swims, and that helped me.”

Similarly, French swimming sensation and four-gold Olympic champion Leon Marchand’s mind was not entirely on his rivalry with Noe Ponti, after winning the men’s 100m medley final in a championship record of 49.92sec. Swiss Ponti was second in 50.39sec, ahead of Italian Thomas Ceccon (51.35sec), who came out with a skull mask.

Despite trailing Ponti by 15.8 points overall, Marchand thanked the considerable French support in the 3,000-strong crowd after lifting his triple crown and said: “I’m really grateful... It’s been really fun since the very first day and it’s been amazing to race these guys.”

Ponti (100m butterfly, 48.60sec), Poland’s Katarzyna Wasick (women’s 50m freestyle, 23.23sec) and South African Pieter Coetze (men’s 200m backstroke, 1:49.88) also completed triple crown feats, while China’s Qin Haiyang matched the championship record in winning the men’s 100m breaststroke final in 55.61sec.

There was also something for the home fans to cheer about as Teong Tzen Wei made a superb comeback from injury to take bronze in the men’s 100m butterfly final.

The 27-year-old, who missed the Paris 2024 Olympics after struggling with an elbow injury and returned to full training less than four months ago, set a national record of 49.37sec. It is more than half a second faster than his 2021 mark of 49.88sec and behind only Ponti and Dutchman Nyls Korstanje (49.12sec).

An exhausted Teong, who had to field mixed zone interviews from a chair, told ST: “I tried to go out hard, use the home crowd’s energy, and didn’t want to lose face in front of Singaporeans.

“This is good for me to understand where I am mentally and physically and adjust for the short-course world championships at the end of the year and the long-course world championships in Singapore next year. I’m at about 80 per cent of where I was but I want to just get back there, I want to be better.”

There was another national record as 18-year-old Zackery Tay clocked 1:56.70 in the men’s 200m backstroke to break Quah Zheng Wen’s 2015 mark of 1:57.40 and finish sixth. Reagan Cheng, the 16-year-old who matched Quah’s timing in the morning heats, was last in 1:57.86.

Nicholle Toh (2:09.63) was fourth in the women’s 200m butterfly final won by Australian Brittany Castelluzzo (2:03.44), while Ashley Lim (4:16.21) was last in the women’s 400m freestyle final won by American Katie Grimes (3:57.61).