Erika Braun Sets Two Masters World Records on Day Four of Pan Am Champs

SARASOTA, Florida, June 8. FOUR more world records fell in the fourth day of long course competition at the Pan American Masters championships, along with a couple of U.S. Masters national records.

After missing the world records in the 50 and 100 freestyles on Thursday and Friday, Erika Braun made up for it with two world records today. First, she secured her first Masters world record today in the 50 butterfly. Her 28.36 beat Olympian Susan von der Lippe's 28.52 from 2009 in the 40-44 age group. Braun competed in the 50 free as a 40-year-old last year at the U.S. Olympic Trials.

Braun followed it up with a 58.04 in the 100 freestyle, done as a split time in today's 200 freestyle race. The swim beat the world record of 58.43 set in 2003 by American Maria Doelger but fell way short of the U.S. national record that Dara Torres set, a 53.78 swum at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials. Torres' swim was not counted as a Masters world record because it was not performed in a sanctioned Masters meet.

The first world record of the day fell just a few minutes before Braun's 50 fly swim, as Diann Uustal, 67, posted a 34.56 in the 65-69 age group to shatter her own mark of 35.42 from 2011. This was Uustal's second event of the day, as she neared her national record of 1:22.30 in the 100 backstroke with a 1:23.93.

Clarke Mitchell broke two records today, first swimming a 1:31.10 in the 100 backstroke, erasing a 14-year-old U.S. national record of 1:35.36 by Ray Taft in the 80-84 age group. He followed it up with a Masters world record in the 50 butterfly, swimming a 38.75 to break Italy's Divano Giulio's world mark of 39.65 and the U.S. national record of 39.05 that Mitchell swam last year in a non-FINA approved meet. (Masters world records must be swum in meets sanctioned by a Masters federation.)

Also breaking a national record in the 50 butterfly, John Smith swam a 33.83 in the 75-79 age group to break Frank Piemme's mark of 35.66. Smith missed out on the world record of 32.76 set in 2012 by Japan's Hiroshi Matsumoto.

Charlotte Sanddal, 91 years old, set a U.S. national record in the women's 50 fly in the 90-94 age group, swimming a 1:29.40 to break Rita Simonton's mark of 1:33.12 from 2008.

Graham Johnston held off Bumpy Jones in the men's 200 freestyle for the 80-84 age group, with both going under Johnston's national record of 2:53.74. Johnston got to the wall first with a 2:52.91, while Jones settled for second in the age group with a 2:53.10.

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