Swimming’s newest World Record holder, Hungarian Katinka Hosszu, says that she’s satisfied with the decision to scratch the semi-final of the 100 back on Monday in order to chase a World Record in the 200 IM.
Hosszu said that while a gold would have been nice, that breaking a World Record and “being the fastest ever” was what she was chasing, saying that it feels “crazy to even say.”
While Hosszu has a long swimming resume (perhaps the longest we’ve ever seen in the sport by a woman), to this point it lacked the two hallmarks of any swimmer’s career: an Olympic gold medal and a long course World Record.
Now she has at least the latter to combine with a 4th World Championship in long course, 6 World Championships in short course, 13, European Championships, and currently 4 World Records in short course.
The Hungarian still has a busy schedule to come, even with this initial check off of her list. There’s still 5 more individual entries on her plate, including the 400 IM where she’s the top seed entering that event as well.
What do we think? 4:28? 4:27? 4:26?
4:28
4:27 high.
I feel like the pessimist, but I see Katinka jumping on it too much and going 4:29 high or 4:30 low. That free split from Ye is just too much to overcome at the end of a long meet.