Just about 9 months ago, Natalie Coughlin’s 52.86 100 back high school record seemed almost untouchable. It had stood for 11 years, one of the oldest on the books, and was untouched through 4 generations of increasingly efficient and technological supersuits that shattered records around the world.
But now the name of the greatest women’s backstroker the world has ever seen is nowhere to be found in the high school record books. Her overall record was taken down by Cindy Tran last year, and now Missy Franklin, the Team USA star who competes scholastically for Regis Jesuit in Aurora, Colorado, took down Coughlin’s Independent School mark at the Colorado State Championships in Fort Collins. Her mark was a 52.30.
She also split a 47.77 100 free on a relay anchor, led off the medley in 24.44 for the 50 back, and swam a 22.41 50 free. The last of those times just missed another Independent school mark of 22.24 (set last year by Maddy Schaefer). The Regis Jesuit 400 free relay, that Franklin anchored, swam a 3:22.42, which is less than a tenth of a second away from the Independent (and overall) National High School record (3:22.34 by Germantown Academy in 2006).
The next target for Franklin, who is still only 15 years old until May, is to attack Rachel Bootsma’s overall National High School, and National Age Group, record of 51.53, which she set last November.
Franklin decided to skip next weekend’s Missouri Grand Prix–she’s the current points leader in the series–to focus on this meet without letting her schooling slip by the wayside. That decision surely paid off with this record.