FLASH! Gretchen Walsh Lowers 50 Fly Record; First Woman Inside 24 Secs
Gretchen Walsh lowered the 50 fly WR she set in prelims to 23.94 to become the first woman through the 24-second barrier in Budapest.
The USA athlete went 24.02 in prelims to slice 0.36 from Therese Alshammar’s record that had stood since the supersuited era of 2009.
Following that, the double Olympic champion set her sights on going through the 24-second barrier and she did just that in the semis at short-course worlds, taking a further 0.08 off that mark.
It was the second WR of the evening following Summer McIntosh in the 400 free in the first final of the six-day meet.
After setting a WR in prelims, Walsh took her final exam in Commercial Law before returning to the pool to rewrite her own history.
“It feels great to go under 24,” said Walsh. “I feel great. I guess that was the new goal after this mornings 24. Swimming under the 24 mark was pretty insane, I am honestly just hoping that I can go faster and keep the streak going.
“I love setting goals for myself based on barriers I can break. I honestly am hoping that I can go faster tomorrow (in the final) and keep the streak going which would be insane.”
She added: “This morning I was really long into my turn so tonight I just tried to make my strokes longer on the first 25 so I didn’t have so much glide into the wall and I think I did that. I think I executed the race better.
“I really don’t know what I am going to fix going into tomorrow. but we will have to find something. Honestly just a best time at this point would be great Going a 22 would be, actually, we are not going to talk about that!
The first individual gold going into the worlds (championships) is something I never thought would happen anytime soon, so I am looking forward to it. That would be amazing too.”
