Saturday at the Pro Swim Sees More Individual Swimming World Records than Paris Olympics

While the American men are still seeking the rocks that will carry them forward to the Los Angeles Olympic Games, the American women sent a thunderous message to the world on Saturday at the Pro Swim Series stop in Ft. Lauderdale.

The three individual World Records set in one day alone in Ft. Lauderdale is more than the two individual World Records that were set in swimming at the Paris Olympic Games last summer – where the temporary pool in La Defense will never beat the slow pool allegations.

First, in prelims at a high level, but non-selection, meet, Gretchen Walsh shaved a tenth off her own World Record in the 100 fly, swimming a 55.09.

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Then, in the fastest heats of the women’s 800 free, the greatest female swimmer of all time, Katie Ledecky, won by more than 19 seconds and took .67 off her own World Record, touching in 8:04.12. That concluded a rejuvenated performance for her where she swam 3:56.81 in the 400 free, her fastest time in nearly 9 years, and 15:24.51 in the 1500 free, the #2 swim in history.

Roughly a decade past when the world’s best female distance swimmers have historically peaked, this was not only a history-making swim because it was a World Record, but it was a paradigm-shifting swim about what age swimmers of her specialty peak at. The 400 free swim seemed to be a pressure release for her, after which she roared to this new World Record.

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Then Regan Smith went only a 57.46 in the 100 back, the 7th-fastest performance in history and 2nd-fastest swim outside of an Olympic Trials or Olympic Games meet (57.33 – Kaylee McKeown – 2023 World Cup).

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And the cherry on top, a whopping 54.60 from Walsh in the 100 fly final – the first woman under 55 seconds in the event and a huge World Record swim. That left her with a gap of .88 seconds to the next-fastest swimmer, Sarah Sjostrom at 55.48.

That gap, incidentally, is bigger than the .81 seconds gap between #1 Adam Peaty (56.88) and #2 Qin Haiyang (57.69) in the 100 breaststroke, which recently has been the standard of 100 meter World Record dominance.

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While records of this sort are unexpected at this timing – both Walsh and Ledecky have a history of being fast in season.

That is now Ledecky’s 16th career individual World Record swim, and her last one came nearly seven years ago, on May 16, 2018 at the Pro Swim Series meet in Indianapolis.

For a Pro Swim Series that has been gradually waning in importance and performance, Saturday was a banner day, one of the best and most-unexpected that the series has ever seen. While the American men still have a lot of questions to answer, the women are now well on their way to the Los Angeles Olympic Games.