China’s Han Xue broke her own world record for the 50m breaststroke for the second time in five days. Han swam a 30.77 at the Gelsenkirchen World Cup 6 meeting, the third world mark of the two-day event. She set the previous best of 30.88 in the World Cup 5 in Glasgow only last Wednesday.
All eyes were on Russia’s double Olympic gold medalist Denis Pankratov, who had a realistic chance of breaking the world record in the 100m butterfly, blew his chances of another world record with a false start in the prelims.
The mistake turned out to be costly, literally. In addition to the $2,000 bonus swimmers earn for a world record at the World Cup, Pankratov had a chance of winning a car at Gelsenkirchen.
The car for the best performance of the weekend went to Marcel Wouda of the Netherlands, who set a world mark in the 400 IM. Wouda cashed in on his superb form this season with a world record in the 400m IM. Wouda, who just missed out on a bronze medal at the 1996 Olympics, clocked 4:05.59.