Check Out Mollie O’Callaghan’s Wild Splitting en Route to 100 Free Top Seed

2022 FINA WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS

• June 18-25, 2022 (pool swimming)
• Budapest, Hungary
• Duna Arena
• LCM (50-meter format)
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In the semifinals of the women’s 100 free, 18-year old Australian swimmer Mollie O’Callaghan took the top seed in a time of 52.85. She nearly even split her race, flipping at the 50 mark in 26.42 and closing just 0.01 seconds slower in 26.43. O’Callaghan’s last 50 is now the fastest back half ever swum by a woman in the 100 free.

O’Callaghan previously set the 100 free back-half record at the 2022 Australian National Championships, where she split 25.92/26.57 to record an overall time of 52.49. That time still stands as the fastest in the world this year.

In her semis race, O’Callaghan was 8th at the 50 mark but then charged home to win. The Aussie’s back half split was the only sub-27 final 50 out of the entire semifinals field, with the next fastest being Penny Oleksiak‘s 27.43 which is a whole second slower. This is especially notable considering that Oleksiak is also known for her back half speed, as she flipped in 7th in the 100 free finals at the Rio Olympics and ended up closing in 26.93 to win the race. However, Oleksiak’s final 50 in that race is still a whole 0.6 seconds slower than what O’Callaghan can go.

O’Callaghan was basically floating to a 26.42 on the first 50, not needing to take the race out fast since it’s only the semifinals. However, she has has proven she can close in a similar speed when going out faster like in Trials, when she opened half a second than she did today but still managed to close only 0.14 seconds slower.

Check out our analysis of O’Callaghan’s closing speed following her swim at Australian trials here.

ALL-TIME CLOSING 50S, WOMEN’S 100 FREESTYLE (LCM)

Data courtesy of Daniel Takata. Follow his Swimming Stats page on Instagram here. 

Notably, in the 200 free, O’Callaghan had similar closing power en route to taking silver in a time of 1:55.22. However, it stand out as much as it did in her 100. Her final 50 in that race was a 28.56, which was the second-fastest in the field but still slower than Yang Junxuan‘s 28.49 that helped her win gold. O’Callaghan oepend her 200 free in 56.88 and closed in 58.40.