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Disclaimer: Swim of the Week is not meant to be a conclusive selection of the best overall swim of the week, but rather one Featured Swim to be explored in deeper detail. The Swim of the Week is an opportunity to take a closer look at the context of one of the many fast swims this week, perhaps a swim that slipped through the cracks as others grabbed the headlines, or a race we didn’t get to examine as closely in the flood of weekly meets.
Bulgarian Olympian and former Alabama Crimson Tide Diana Petkova had a strong showing at last weekend’s Bulgarian Open Team Championships in Plovdiv, setting a pair of best times and solidifying her spot at this summer’s European Championships.
The 25-year-old’s top performance came in the 50 breaststroke, where she set new lifetime bests in both the prelims and final, culminating in cracking the 31-second barrier for the first time.
Petkova clocked 31.13 in the prelims, knocking more than three-tenths off her previous best time of 31.47, set at the 2024 European Championships, and then in the final, she got all the way down to 30.84.
That makes her just the second Bulgarian woman to go sub-31, joining national record holder Teya Nikolova, who clocked 30.67 at the 2025 World Championships in Singapore.
Petkova’s swim moves her into the top 20 in the world this season.
2025-2026 LCM Women 50 BREAST
Qianting
29.44
| 2 | Mckenzie Siroky | USA | 29.64 | 05/23 |
| 3 | Yang Chang | CHN | 30.11 | 11/17 |
| 4 | Benedetta PILATO | ITA | 30.13 | 04/18 |
| 5 | Anita BOTTAZZO | ITA | 30.20 | 04/18 |
| 6 | Florine GASPARD | BEL | 30.26 | 05/14 |
| 6 | Lara van Niekerk | RSA | 30.26 | 02/08 |
| 8 | Satomi Suzuki | JPN | 30.32 | 03/22 |
| 9 | Eneli Jefimova | EST | 30.39 | 05/25 |
| 9 | Sienna Toohey | AUS | 30.39 | 04/08 |
| 11 | Mona MCSHARRY | IRL | 30.43 | 04/09 |
| 11 | Skyler SMITH | USA | 30.43 | 01/16 |
| 13 | Siobhan Haughey | HKG | 30.46 | 04/10 |
| 14 | Anna Elendt | GER | 30.54 | 04/25 |
| 15 | Veera Kivirinta | FIN | 30.59 | 05/25 |
| 16 | Egle SALU | LTU | 30.60 | 04/24 |
| 17 | Lisa ANGIOLINI | ITA | 30.61 | 04/18 |
| 18 | Barbara Mazurkiewicz | POL | 30.62 | 04/10 |
| 19 | Piper ENGE | USA | 30.65 | 05/25 |
| 20 | Imogen Clark | GBR | 30.69 | 04/14 |
She also qualified for the 2026 European Championships, which will take place this August.
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Petkova also set a new Bulgarian Record in the 100 fly last weekend, putting up a time of 1:00.02 to improve on Kalina Gamisheva‘s previous mark of 1:00.74 set last year.
Petkova also owns the national record in the 50 free (25.53), 50 fly (27.44) and 200 IM (2:12.38) in long course meters. She holds six different marks in short course marks, holding national records in the 50 free (24.82), 50 breast (29.97), 100 breast (1:05.63), 50 fly (26.91), 100 IM (58.28) and 200 IM (2:09.50).
She represented Bulgaria at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, and competed at five NCAA Championship meets for the University of Alabama, highlighted by leading off the team’s 3rd-place finishing 400 free relay in 2022.
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