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ROME, Italy, July 27. REBECCA Soni of the United States captured her second breaststroke world record with a superb swim during the women's 100 breast semifinal rounds at the FINA World Championships.
Soni ripped off a time of 1:04.84 to wipe out Leisel Jones' world record of 1:05.09 set in 2006. Incidentally, Soni also smashed her meet record of 1:05.66 set during prelims.
"It is only a semi, but I think for the finals it is more important to push for the gold medal," Soni said. "This was my race to see what I could do with time. Still going to come back tomorrow and try to do it again. It helped a lot to finish my senior year of college at USC, and then got back right in the water."
Russia's Yuliya Efimova qualified second in 1:05.84, just off her national record of 1:05.80, while Australia's Sarah Katsoulis took third in 1:06.23.
Canada's Annamay Pierse (1:06.34), Denmark's Rikke Moller-Pedersen (1:06.50), Austria's Mirna Jukic (1:06.83), the United States' Kasey Carlson (1:06.95) and Germany's Sarah Poewe (1:07.10) completed the rest of a deep top eight that will likely be vying for silver in finals tomorrow night.