15-Year-Old Pilato Puts Up 1:07.0 100 Breast/30.3 50 Breast Combo In Puglia

REGIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP – PUGLIA

• 25/26 JULY 2020
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You can read the original post on SwimSwam Italia here.

15-year-old Benedetta Pilato put up two solid performances across her specialty discipline of the breaststroke, competing at the Puglia Regional Championship meet this weekend.

First up was the 100m breast for the teen, with Pilato wasting no time putting up a new lifetime best in the race. Touching in a time of 1:07.06, Pilato blew her previous career-quickest of 1:08.21 out of the water, a mark she established en route to finishing 6th at the 2019 World Junior Championships.

Splits for Pilato’s new PB include 31.36/35.70 to get under the 1:08 threshold for the first time in her young career.

For perspective, Pilato’s 1:07.06 stunner would fall just .01 shy of the U.S. National Age Group Record for 15-16 females, a time which stands at the 1:07.05 from Megan Jendrick from 2000. Pilato now ranks #1 among European 18&U women for performances in 2020

But Pilato didn’t rest on her laurels. Instead, she fired off a speedy 50m breaststroke time of 30.33 to take the event here in Puglia by just under 3 seconds. That time is on par with her season-best, a time of 30.08 notched at December’s Italian LC Championships to capture gold.

Pilato’s personal best in this 50m breast sprint is represented by the national record she established last year in the prelims of the World Championships. She notched an extraordinary mark of 29.98 to wow the crowd before ultimately settling for silver in 30.00. She followed that up with European Short Course Championships gold, however, snagging a new World Junior Record of 29.32.