Isaac Cooper Breaks 2009-Era World Cup Record in the 50 Backstroke in Prelims

2024 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup -Shanghai

• Friday, October 18th – Sunday, October 20th
• Shanghai, China
• Prelims at 9:30 am local (9:30 pm ET previous night)/Finals at 6:30 pm local (6:30 am ET)
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Australian swimmer Isaac Cooper broke the Swimming World Cup Record in the 50 meter backstroke on Saturday morning in Shanghai, swimming 22.58 in the heats of the event.

The old record of 22.61 was set by American Peter Marshall in Singapore during the 2009 series almost 15 years ago as part of the record-bonanza that was the 2009 supersuited World Cup Series. At the time, that swim was the World Record as well: the third time Marshall broke that record in five weeks.

His World Record stood until 2014 when France’s Florent Manaudou swam 22.22. The current record belongs to Russian Kliment Kolesnikov, who swam 22.11 in 2022.

There are now only 10 records left from the 2009 World Cup series.

Marshall was a 50 backstroke specialist, especially in short course meters, though he did also break the short course World Record in the 100 back three times – including in 2004, before the supersuit era.

Cooper envisions himself as a 50 meter specialist as well. In fact, at the pre-Olympic, under-attended, 2024 World Championships, Cooper swam the 50 free (5th), 50 back (gold), and 50 fly (4th) – the latter two of which are not on the Olympic schedule.

Training less than 10,000 meters a week, Cooper would struggle in the 100 meter distance later in the year. He finished 21st in the 100 back at the Paris Olympic Games in 54.21, about seven-tenths shy of his personal best from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games when he was only 17-years old.

Cooper is now back into the 50 meter races, having finished 5th in the 50 free (21.15) on Friday to kick off the meet. His only other entry in the meet is the 50 fly on Sunday.