FLASH! Kate Douglass Crushes 200m Breaststroke s/c WR In 2:12.72
Kate Douglass destroyed her 200m breaststroke short-course world record in 2:12.72 at the final leg of the World Cup in Singapore.
The American set a global mark of 2:14.16 at last week’s stop in Incheon, South Korea, where she downed Rebecca Soni’s longstanding standard.
But on Thursday she obliterated that, bypassing 2:13 altogether to take the WR and sweep the 200 breaststroke across all three stops to win the triple crown.
Douglass, who won the 200m breaststroke among four medals at the Olympics in Paris, was inside world record pace throughout, by 0.21 at 50m, 0.68 at 100 and 0.87 at 150 before she swam further away from the WR line to eventually slice a hefty 1.44secs from her own mark.
Splits: 30.47/1:04.07/1:38.33/2:12.72
She said: “I definitely don’t think I expected 2.12. I did kind of have a feeling that I had that kind of race in me after last weekend. I feel like if I actually came into the race expecting to break the world record, then maybe I could surprise myself there and I did.
“Honestly, I kept the same stroke count as I did last week. I just kind of tried to really be more powerful, which you with the stroke and just push it that last 50.”
Alina Smushka (2:18.79) and Tara Kinder (2:19.08) were second and third respectively.
Douglass returned to the pool 18 minutes later to win the Triple Crown in the 100IM, clocking 56.57.
- Link to results
- Kate Douglass Blasts World Record In 200m Breaststroke In Incheon
- Shanghai coverage
- Incheon Day 1 Recap
- Incheon Day 2 Recap
- Incheon Day 3 Recap
- Singapore Day 1 Recap
I love Kate’s stroke, none of the excessive head lift and more time with her head underwater. Back in 2004 at the ASCA World clinics in San Diego I had a presentation where I stated for every additional tenth of a second with the head underwater in streamline per stroke your final time will be lowered by one tenth per stroke. So, for LCM if the strokes per 50 meters is 16 then keeping the head underwater each stroke would lower your total time by 0.64 seconds. As I stated back then too many coaches were copying the strokes of the losers not the winners like Amanda and Ed Moses. Look back at Ed Moses 200 SCM times and he would still place today.