No sooner had we reported on Katinka Hosszu‘s first world record of Friday’s session at Short Course Worlds than she had already broken a second. The Hungarian stayed hot on day 3, taking down her own 100 IM mark for her third gold medal of the meet so far.
Hosszu broke both backstroking world records this week, but an exhausted Hosszu had to watch her 400 IM mark get taken away by Spanish rival Mireia Belmonte on day 1, with Hosszu on her third of three events in the session.
Maybe that was some fuel on Hosszu’s fire, because she’s been outstanding ever since. Her 56.70 in the 100 IM Friday just snuck under her old World record of 56.86, set earlier this year on the World Cup circuit. Hosszu was just off the record in prelims, but saved her best stuff for the final to nip the mark.
Hosszu has been aggressive in opening her races this week – that didn’t work out well for her in the 400 IM, where Belmonte swam right by her in the back 200, but that aggressiveness is what got her this record. Hosszu was out in 26.17, a tick quicker than her prelims swim and .15 seconds better than her world record split. Coincidentally, Hosszu broke the world record by .16.
She’s really been feeling the backstrokes this week, and its safe to guess that her great first-50 split had a lot to do with the backstroke.
Hosszu now has 3 world records on the week along with three gold medals and two silvers. That’s the best individual performance thus far, just ahead of Belmonte’s 3 golds and 2 world records.
