Yufei Zhang Re-Breaks Junior World Record in 200 Fly

Yufei Zhang broke the Junior World Record in the 200 fly for the second time in as many days with her bronze medal finish in the finals of the 2015 World Aquatics Championships in Kazan, Russia, Thursday evening.

Zhang’s time of 2:06.51 was 0.41 seconds faster than the previous record, which she set in the semi-finals the evening before.

Here’s a comparison of the splits between those two races:

The splits show that she attacked the opening leg much more aggressively tonight, swimming the first length .67 faster than she did yesterday, split close to the same in the second leg, backed off a bit on the third, and came home in almost exactly the same time.

Katie McLaughlin of the United States, who previously held this record until Zhang broke it in the semi-finals, also swim into tonight’s final.  Her time of 2:06.95 was faster than the previous junior world record time of 2:07.08, which she swam at last summer’s Pan Pacific Championships.  Tonight, McLaughlin went out strong, and actually was in first through the 150m mark, before fading over the last 50m and finishing in sixth.

Zhang previously held the Junior World Record in the 100 fly before her mark was broken by Xinyi Chen at last year’s Asian Games.