It looks like Mireia Belmonte showed up to swim.
The Spanish 24-year-old has been blowing up the pool at the Short Course World Championships in Doha, Qatar on day 1, and she broke her second World Record in just a few hours while winning the 400 IM.
Consider for a moment that Belmonte just swam a 200 fly/400 IM combo in the same day, and including prelims, swam each race twice. That makes it even more impressive that Belmonte did her biggest damage in the back half of both races, closing insanely well in one of swimming’s toughest event combos.
Belmonte was actually a full second and a half off world record pace at the 200-meter mark and was running a distant second, but busted out two wicked final 100 splits to overtake the leader, Katinka Hosszu, along with Hosszu’s world record from earlier this year.
Belmonte went 4:19.86, which is just about one full second under Hosszu’s old mark, set in this very same pool during the World Cup event in August.
Here’s a look at splits comparisons between Belmonte’s new World Record, Hosszu’s old World Record and Hosszu’s runner-up swim from today:
- Hosszu’s old WR: Fly- 59.41, Back- 1:05.22, Breast- 1:16.21, Free- 59.99 = 4:20.83
- Belmonte’s new WR: Fly- 1:00.02, Back- 1:06.51, Breast- 1:13.74, Free- 59.59 = 4:19.86
- Hosszu today: Fly- 1:00.34, Back- 1:04.05, Breast- 1:15.90, Free- 1:02.65 = 4:22.94
Where Hosszu relies on her fly and back to build a big lead, Belmonte tends to do the opposite, cruising the first 200 and making a furious charge in the breast and free. Her free split actually cracked the minute barrier, which is what Hosszu had to do to break the record earlier this year.
Also note that 1:13.74 breaststroke split for Belmonte, which was an absolutely crushing blow to most of the field.
We’ve long known that Belmonte was an elite talent and one of the toughest swimmers in the world. But it still seems like no one saw an explosion of this level coming from her heading into Doha. With just one day down and four more days of swimming to go, this may be only the beginning of a stellar week for the Spanish sensation.
