Sarah Sjostrom has become the first woman in history to go faster than 24 seconds in the 50 long course meter freestyle at the Swedish National Championships on Sunday.
The video below, courtesy of SVT Play, shows Sjostrom swim to a 23.98, which is better than the 24.05 done by Ranomi Kromowidjojo both at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games and the 2013 World Championships.
This won’t go as any official record for Sjostrom: Therese Alshammar was a 23.88 as the Swedish National Record and Britta Steffen was a 23.73 as the World Record. With both of those times were done in polyurethane suits, which makes Sjostrom’s swim arguably as impressive.
We won’t see her match up head-to-head with Australia’s Cate Campbell this year, as they’ve got no matched meets, but Campbell could get under 24 seconds at the Commonwealth Games or Pan Pacs with how well she’s swimming.
Speaking of rubber suits, Sjostrom is kind of an interesting case. She emerged with a World Record at the 2009 World Championships in a polyurethane suit. At the same time, she swam in a rubber suit, better than anyone else, at just 15 years old, so the road could not have end there. The last year, now at 20 years old, she’s started to come through again at the top of the world, capped off with this swim. She’ll now be in a race to have her “biggest moment” move beyond that 2009 world record.
A full meet recap will follow.
See Sjostrom’s 100 fly world-leader from Thursday here.
Sjöström just delivered another good performance, swimming 50m fly in time of 24.43.
Good???
Tremendous WR!!!
“good” doesn’t even begin to describe that swim. That swim is all-time.
Impressive. Very impressive. Also noteworthy is that de brujin time is 3rd fastest textile until now
By not breathing at all , she really gains a lot of time on anyone in the field . Her stroke is well refined and very effective . She is a very tough talented swimmer . Campbell has a strong opponent now … i wish Simone Manuel to be in the battle too by next year on 100 free .
An excellent swim.
There will be most likely only a 50m fly tomorrow for Sarah Sjöström (plus a possible relay), meaning pretty much a rest day before Women’s 100m free on Sunday, which hopefully bodes well for another good performance in freestyle events.
However, I shouldn’t get ahead of myself on waiting more fast swimming because Sjöstöm herself highlighted she needs to improve her turns and take better advantage of underwaters, explaining she loses too much energy while she is underwater and, hence, feels compelled to surface as fast as possible.
Amazing
The reason for Sarah’s emergence on this distance is a much improved start and also the fact that she does it no-breath now. She’s shaved so much time in a short amount of time by just refining her swim.
Although I still see 100 fly as her best WR and Olympic gold chance in two years.
😯
Miss Campbell will finally have a rival in the 100 free in the next 2 years.
Crazy to believe she is only 20 years old!
Was thinking the same thing. Would’ve guessed mid to late twenties for shure.