Three days into the World Deaf Swimming Championships, six deaf world records have fallen, including one to American Marcus Titus in front of his home nation’s crowd.
The World Deaf Swimming Championships are taking place in San Antonio, Texas this week, the same facility that hosted U.S. Junior and Senior Nationals earlier in the month.
Swimming for a home American audience, Titus broke his own deaf world record in the 100 free, going 51.22 to win gold. Titus’s old record was a 51.42 from 2011; Russia’s Vitalii Obotin was also under that mark in taking silver (51.35).
Apart from that race, it’s been the 50-meter events where records have been most on the chopping block. The men’s 50 back and women’s 50 fly records were broke twice apiece over the first three days, and the women’s 50 breast record also fell.
In the men’s 50 back, Japan’s Yoshikazu Kanaji broke the deaf world record in both prelims and finals. The 21-year-old Kanaji went 27.35 in the morning, then 27.06 at night, dropping the world mark previously shared by John Kealy and Ryutaro Ibara at 27.90. Ibara, also representing Japan, was second in the event in San Antonio, also bettering his old world record with a 27.69.
Kanaji also won the 200 back on day 1, going 2:08.14.
In the women’s 50 fly, South African Peggy de Villiers twice broke the world record, first with a 28.40 in prelims, and second with a 28.28 in the medal final. That takes nearly a full second off the record, which stood at 29.16 from Pernilla Kile in 2009.
The women’s 50 breast saw Belarus’s Aksana Petrushenka better her own record in prelims. She had previously set the world record at 33.27 back in 2009, but went 32.85 in morning heats. She would go on to win the event in 32.96.
In the women’s 100 back, Great Britain’s Danielle Joyce went 1:06.35, breaking the old world record of 1:06.82 set by Alena Alexeeva in 2013.
The final world record of the meet went to the Russian men’s 4×100 medley relay. Igor Zhuravlev, Martin Formin, Ilia Trishkin and Vitalii Obotin went 3:53.04 to break the six-year-old world record the nation already held.
You can find full results of the meet on Meet Mobile. Results from the first three days can be found on the meet website here.
The meet continues three more days, though Saturday night.
