Natalie Coughlin, continuing her tour through Italy, has broken the American Record in the 100 SCM IM at the Trofeo Internazionale di Nuoto “Mussi-Lombardi-Femiano” on Saturday. She won the race in 58.55, which takes a tenth of a second off of the 58.65 done by Ariana Kukors at the 2010 Short Course World Championships.
The swim moves Coughlin up to a tie for 11th 0n the all-time list with Great Britain’s Fran Halsall in an event that Americans only very rarely race. The World Record is a 56.86 belonging to Hungarian Katinka Hosszu.
The top 6 Americans of all-time:
- Natalie Coughlin, 2014, 58.55
- Ariana Kukors, 2010, 58.65
- Julia Smith, 2008, 58.90
- Katie Meili, 2014, 59.01
- Jenny Thompson, 1999, 59.30
- Missy Franklin, 2011, 59.44
Coughlin will swim at the short course meters World Championships in December, but her only entry is as part of the American 400 free relay. Until this fall, Coughlin hadn’t swum a single official backstroke race since the 2012 Olympic Trials, but as part of a three meet Italian tour so far in the last month, she’s been getting back into the backstroke/butterfly/IM races that made her so famous early in her career.
She now holds 8 American Records across the various courses, including two individually in short course meters (she also owns the 100 back in short course meters from the 2011 Duel in the Pool).
go natalie!
Natalie Coughlin with the 100m IM American record?! What a beast!!
Her 2002 splits: 26.41/32.39 >>>> 58.80
Her 2014 splits: 26.72/31.83 >>>> 58.55
She also beat Federica Pellegrini in the 100 free. 52.68 vs 53.19
Natalie broke the American and world record in the 100 IM at the East Meadow world cup on November 23, 2002! She swam 58.80 on that day.
http://www.omegatiming.com/File/Download?id=00010204003D000000FFFFFFFFFFFF01
It’s impressive to see her still at the best level 12 years later.
Great longevity. Amazing career. Huge champion. Respect.
RE: top 5 list – didn’t Jenny Thompson swim a 59.30 back in the 90s, which was then a WR?
Oldtimer – nice find! That one wasn’t on USA Swimming’s lists, but I’ll update above and also let USA Swimming know. Thanks!
I believe that was Angel Martino. She swam this at 1993 world short course championships swimming a 58.6 (I think).
Martino broke the 100 back SCM record at 58.50, something she only swam a few times.
Very cool. I certainly hope she makes a run at the 2IM in ’16.
100 IM in short course is very different.
And I think she doesn’t want to swim events above 100 meters in long course anymore.
Glad to see she’s branching back out into non-freestyle events!
Yeah for Natalie!