Hungarian Katinka Hosszu blew away the competition this morning in Netanya, Israel while racing in the women’s 400m IM prelims at the 2015 European Short Course Championships. Rocking a time of 4:19.46, Hosszu scored a brand new World Record in the event, taking it back from Spain’s Mireia Belmonte who was the current WR holder from her swim in Doha last year.
In the heat previous to Hosszu, however, was French stand-out Lara Grangeon, who registered a new record of her own. In a time of 4:29.14 – a full 10 seconds behind Hosszu – Grangeon wrote herself into the French record books, earning a new National Record in the 400m IM short course event. Her mark today eclipsed that of the late Cammile Muffat, who was the previous record holder with her time of 4:30.65.
With her swim in prelims, Grangeon became the first French woman to dip beneath the 4:30 threshold in the short course version of the 400 IM. Grangeon managed to negative split her backstroke and freestyle legs, scoring splits of 34.66/34.46 in the former and 32.77/30.06 in the latter.
Splits for Grangeon were as follows:
1:01.59
1:09.12
1:15.60
1:02.83
Grangeon, from New Caledonia, dominated this summer’s Pacific Games in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, earning a tremendous 8 individual gold medals. She followed that up with a 400m IM title at last month’s French Short Course Nationals, registering a time of 4:34.52 to win the event in Angers.
The 24-year-old is slated to swim the 200m breaststroke, 200m butterfly, 100m IM and 200m IM events throughout the course of these Championships, and she comes in as the highest seed – 3rd – in the 200m butterfly.