FLASH! Gretchen Walsh Does It Again, Sets Ninth World Record & Wins Sixth Gold in 50 Free
No one had stopped Gretchen Walsh in her first four individual finals at the Short Course World Championships, and a victory in the 50 freestyle final was seen as a near certainty. But would she again lower the world record after beating Ranomi Kromowidjojo’s seven-year-old world record in the semifinal round?
Of course she would. Walsh typically has one the slowest starts of high-level swimmers, but her reaction time in the final was a respectable 0.73, three hundredths faster than she got off the block in the semifinal. Her underwater dolphin kicks, unrivaled among any other female swimmers, put her ahead of the field right away, and she flipped in 11.12, a hundredth quicker than in the semis. Home in 11.71, Walsh finished in 22.83, four hundredths quicker than her semifinal world record.
That global standard was the ninth individual mark Walsh has set this week, with two marks apiece in the 50 butterfly and 100 IM and three such records in the 100 fly, where she improved the overall time by a whopping 1.31 seconds over the course of the rounds. Walsh also became the second-fastest swimmer ever in the 100 free.
Also reaching the individual podium for the fifth time this week was Kate Douglass, whose own remarkable swimming has been largely overshadowed by her University of Virginia training partner. Douglass came in at 23.05 to secure the silver medal, three tenths ahead of bronze medalist Kasia Wasick, who clocked 23.37.
Great Britain’s Eva Okaro finished fourth in 23.66, setting a world junior record by surpassing the 2020 mark of Anastasiya Shkurdai. Australia’s Meg Harris, who won Olympic silver in this event in Paris, took fifth in 23.73.
