Felipe Franca hits two top-10 world times at Brazilian regional meet

Brazilian breaststroker Felipe Franca is finding his speed early, hitting two top-10-ranked times in our world rankings at a regional meet leading up to the country’s national championships next month.

Swimming at the home pool of his Corinthians club, Franca won the 50 and 100 breaststroke with some internationally significant times, for this point in the season.

He was 27.81 to win the 50 breast, checking in at #5 in our current world rankings in this young long course season.

Franca came back to go 1:00.98 to win the 100 breaststroke, the 8th-best time of the year so far.

Franca is coming off of gold medals at Short Course Worlds in both the 50 and 100 breast, and is one of Brazil’s top threats heading into this summer’s Long Course World Championships in Kazan, Russia. Most of Brazil’s top athletes will be tapering down next month for the Maria Lenk Trophy, the nation’s long course national championship meet.

Also swimming at this regional was young sprinting phenom Matheus Santana, who won the 50 free in 22.93. You can read more about the regional meet on BestSwimming here.