Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden broke the 100m butterfly world record Sunday during the semifinals with a time of 55.74.
That time bettered American Dana Vollmer’s 55.98 world record from the 2012 Olympic Games and makes Sjostrom only the second woman ever under 56-seconds in the 100 fly.
Nobody else was even able to crack 57-seconds during the semifinals. Her closest competitor heading into the final is Jeanette Ottesen of Denmark who managed a 57.05 to take the second seed overall.
This is the third time that Sjostrom has broken the 100m butterfly world record. The first time she broke it was at the 2009 World Championships when she was just 15.
There, she broke the mark in the semifinals with a time of 56.44 and lowered it once more to a 56.06 in finals.
At the world championships, Sjostrom has only once slowed down from prelims to finals in the 100m fly. That was in 2011 when she finished fourth. Both times that she won the 100m fly however, she progressed from prelims to semifinals and from semifinals to finals.
Sjostrom has been swimming fast all season, so taking time off her current world record is not out of the question.
Prior to the meet, Sjostrom put a scare on the world record after swimming a 56.04 in Rome. That’s currently the third fastest performance ever, and she did that in season.
Based on that performance, it seems as though there’s potential for her to drop time in finals.
