Gretchen Walsh Breaks Her Own 100m Butterfly World Record for the Fourth Time
Anushe Engineer
American swimmer Gretchen Walsh shattered the women's 100m butterfly world record for the fourth time, clocking 54.33 seconds at the Fort Lauderdale Open in Florida. She now leads the event's all-time rankings by more than a second over Sweden's Sarah Sjostrom.
American swimmer Gretchen Walsh set a time of 54.33 seconds in the women's 100m butterfly, breaking her own world record for the fourth time at the Fort Lauderdale Open in Florida.
On Saturday, Walsh shaved 27 hundredths of a second off her previous world record of 54.60 seconds, which she set at the same pool during a Pro Swim event last May. She had broken the record twice in one day at last year's meet, bringing her total record-breaking performances to four.
Walsh, who won three world titles in Singapore last year, now holds a lead of more than one second over the second-fastest woman in history in this event, Sweden's Sarah Sjostrom, whose best time is 55.48 seconds.
She also finished more than four seconds ahead of former world junior record holder Claire Curzan, who placed second with 58.44 seconds, and more than two seconds faster than the world's best time this season.
Walsh now accounts for more than one-third of all sub-56-second swims in the event's history.
The 23-year-old swimmer humorously called her world record a “yearly tradition” in a social media post shortly after the achievement.
“Couldn't be more grateful for the world record, the crowd and this pool,” she wrote in an Instagram post.
Meanwhile, French Olympic hero Léon Marchand claimed two titles, bringing his week's total to four. On Saturday, the four-time Olympic champion won the 200m breaststroke in 2 minutes, 9.04 seconds, a season-best, followed by a victory in the 200m individual medley with 1:57.28.
Hungary's Hubert Kos, who trains alongside Marchand under the coaching of Bob Bowman—Michael Phelps' former mentor—at the University of Texas, tied for second in the medley with Carson Foster, both touching at 1:57.95.
Marchand, preparing for the European Championships starting in Paris on July 31, has used early-season meets to test himself in less familiar events. But in Fort Lauderdale, the 23-year-old chose the same program that earned him four gold medals at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Katie Ledecky opened the day with an 8:12.66 in the women's 800m freestyle, finishing more than 30 seconds ahead of Katie Grimes's 8:40.80.
Ledecky, the most decorated female swimmer in history with 14 Olympic medals, was just off her season-best of 8:08.57 set in March.
