Megan Jendrick Finally Tracks Down American Record in 50 Breast; Jendrick Talks About Past Two Days

FEDERAL WAY, Washington, July 25. IT took three times under the American record in the women's 50 breast to do it, but KING's Megan Jendrick finally posted a time that can be ratified by USA Swimming as the national mark.

Having already clocked a pair of 30.36 splits in the 100 breast yesterday at the Pacific Northwest Swimming Championships yesterday that did not count, Jendrick split a 30.40 in the 200 breast en route to winning the event in 2:35.18.

Her performance eclipsed the 30.53 split Jessica Hardy set during the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials prior to testing positive for clenbuterol in a later swim. Jendrick's split moved her closer to Amanda Reason's global mark of 30.23.

As reported by Swimming World yesterday, Jendrick hit the wall at the 50-meter mark in 30.36 twice.

The first did not count because it came during prelims of a double-ended chase start meet, which precluded an automatic touchpad-produced split from being created.

Jendrick then split a 30.36 during finals, when the pads were set up to record the split, but she drew a disqualification due to a false start.

Jendrick's record-setting performance this evening closes out what has been an odd two days for the swimmer.

Jendrick provided the following statement regarding the past two days exclusively to Swimming World.

It was definitely a long weekend for me. I knew coming into this I had some great swims in me and I was extremely happy with my preliminary 100. That best time was nine years in the making. I knew coming into this [meet] that because of how it was set up the prelim swims wouldn't count, but I was very happy with the 50 time from the morning and was ready to do it again in finals. Then, obviously the officials saw what they say they saw, so that was very disappointing. It actually made me a little nervous going into finals tonight because not only was it my last chance, but I had to do it in the first 50 of a 200, which meant taking it out strong and still finishing legally. It caused me to rush my pullout a bit, but I still felt great. It's definitely a big relief for me and I'm very proud and happy to have got the record for myself and my coach. I know my coach Sean [Hutchison], who is in Rome right now, was very happy when my husband [Nathan] sent him a text with the results!

In all, it has been a long summer. Because of having broken my leg ultimately so close to World Trials I just wasn't able to get it together that quickly to make the Worlds team. We trained longer and tapered less to try and get me back to where I needed to be after being out of action so long and I definitely gave it my best in Indianapolis. I was proud of my swims there, but a couple of weeks of more healing and more tapering later, this is a great finale for the season.

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