Budapest 2024, Day 2 Prelims: Ruta Meilutyte, Yuliya Efimova & Evgeniia Chikunova Get 100m Breaststroke Underway
Ruta Meilutyte will go head to head with Evgeniia Chikunova on day two of prelims at the short-course worlds in Budapest.
The pair go in the penultimate heat in the 100m breaststroke with Yuliya Efimova going in the previous prelim.
Also in the water at the Duna Arena this morning are Qin Haiyang, Siobhan Haughey and Maxime Grousset the morning after a whirlwind night before when six world records were set during the opening finals session and seven in total on day one.
Women’s 100m Freestyle
Gretchen Walsh returned from setting two individual WRs in the 50 fly to lead the 100 free prelims by some way.
The USA swimmer – also part of the women’s 4×1 free that set a global standard on the opening day – was the only woman to break 52 in 51.64.
Siobhan Haughey, silver medallist at Melbourne 2022, was second through in 52.12 with Freya Anderson and Kate Douglass both clocking 52.27 into Wednesday evening’s semis.
Men’s 100m Freestyle
In the absence of Kyle Chalmers, a new champion will be crowned in Budapest.
Jack Alexy posted 45.05 for championship and American records on the lead-off as the USA men’s 4×1 free clinched the title in a world-record time.
It took Jordan Crooks less than 45 seconds to consign that mark to history as the Cayman Islands swimmer posted 44.95 in the ninth of 11 prelims.
That moved Crooks to within 0.11 of Chalmers’ WR of 44.84 set in Kazan, Russia, in October 2021.
Only Chalmers and Amaury Leaveaux have gone faster with the Frenchman posting 44.94 at the European short-course championships in 2008 as the super-suit era started to get into full swing.
Crooks moved level with Vlad Morozov as third in the all-time rankings.
