Cesar Cielo with world-leading 20.68 in 50 free prelims of Jose Finkel

Cesar Cielo put up a lightning-quick relay split on day 1 of the Jose Finkel trophy, and at prelims of day 3, he followed it up with the world’s fastest 50 free of 2014.

Cielo went 20.67 out of the preliminary heats, the fastest time in the world by four tenths this year. It’s also just three tenths off the world record held by South Africa’s Roland Schoeman.

We’ve got video of the race, which you can view above. That’s the fourth-fastest swim Cielo has ever done, per Brazil’s BestSwimming (article in its original Portuguese), with his lifetime-best standing at 20.51. Cielo will have a chance to surpass that in finals.

Also in prelims, Cielo and three more Brazilians qualified for the Short Course World Championships in the 50 free. Cielo and Bruno Fratus (21.40)got under the men’s cut, with Graciele Herrmann (24.45) and Etiene Medeiros (24.58) qualifying for the women.

BestSwimming has a full prelims recap in Portuguese here.