Hungarian Katinka Hosszu has started the 2015 LEN European Short Course Championships on the right foot. The world champion competed the in 400m IM this morning in Netanya, Israel, touching the pads in a new world record time of 4:19.46, 0.40 ahead of the previous world record set by Mireia Belmonte Garcia. Belmonte’s record of 4:19.86 was recently done at the last Short Course World Championships, last December in Doha, where she touched ahead of Hosszu, who finished the race 2nd in a time of 4:22.94.
Comparing Hosszu’s swim to Belmonte’s, Hosszu had a stronger first half of the race, where Belmonte excelled in the breast and free leg of the event. Hosszu’s strong 100m fly and 100m back paved the way for her world record swim, as she was more than 2 seconds ahead of world record pace at the 200m mark. Her fly split was 59.19, almost a full second ahead of Belmonte’s (1:00.02) split in Doha. The Iron Lady kept up her pace to complete the 100m back in 1:05.13, again one second ahead of Belmonte’s 100m back split of 1:06.51. The world record split (3:20.27) gained slightly on Hosszu after her 100m breast (1:15.43) as she turned at the pads at 3:19.75. Hosszu continued to show her strength by negative splitting her final 100m, as her first 50m was 30.31 and the last 50m of the race she split 29.40, finishing the race with a final 100m free time of 59.71, just splits short of Belmonte’s 100m free split (59.59), but still enough to earn her the world record title.
Being that this was only a preliminary swim, the Iron Lady will have a second swim in this event, competing tonight in the final of the 400m IM, seeded 1st and 10 seconds ahead of the 2nd seed, Lara Grangeon (4:29.14) of France.
Hosszu announced on her Twitter this morning:
I got back my World Record that I "lost" last year! I have been waiting a whole year, couldn't to wait until the afternoon to try…
— Iron Lady (@HosszuKatinka) December 2, 2015
