In the middle of the last weekend’s rain and wind, 17-year-old Serafina King broke two American Paralympic swimming records at an outdoor California meet.
King, competing in the S10 class, technically broke both short course yard records in the same event – one in prelims and the other on a front-half split in finals.
On Sunday morning, King went 1:05.00 in the 100 yard backstroke to break a nearly-13-year-old record for the S10 class. King’s time beat the 1:05.69 put up by Mikhaila Rutherford back in March of 2003, making the record King broke not too much older than she is.
In finals that night, King went out for a 50 split, coming up with her second American record of the day. She was 32.00 at the 50 split, crushing her own American S10 record of 33.32 set in 2012.
That kind of speed several months out from the U.S. Paralympics Swimming Trials is a great sign for King, an international veteran. She has previously represented Team USA at the 2014 Para Pan Pacific Championships as well as the 2015 Parapan American Games. She won bronze in the S10 100 back at the 2014 Pan Pacs and bronze in the S10 400 free at the 2015 Pan Ams.
“I was surprised that I broke both records not tapered or rested, and especially with the wind at 30mph and the rain,” said King this week. “I’m very happy and proud of the times that I swam, but I’m going to continue to try and drop even more off of the records in my upcoming swims. I’m excited to be in such a good place headed into the trials for Rio, and I feel like it’s a great start to the new year.”
wpDiscuz
Congratulations Serafina, regardless of the brutal weather you had some great swims!
What a awesome job, Serafina. Congratulations! Best of luck as you swim on to the Rio trials.
Soooooo very proud of her.
It’s good to see some positive Paralympic swimming news in the states! If you look at the world rankings, it looks like the S10 class is a bunch of teenagers, except for a few veterans. 2016 and 2020 should be interesting with such a young group of ladies. Congrats!