While swimmers across the United States took a much earned break for the Thanksgiving holiday, Germany held their 2016 Short Course Championships in Berlin last weekend. That meet served as their qualifier for the 2016 Short Course World Championships in Windsor, Canada that begin next month, and saw German Olympian Marco Koch break the short course meter world record in the 200 breaststroke.
Touching the wall in 2:00.44, Koch broke the previous world record by just .04 to put his name on the record books. The previous world record had been held by Hungarian Daniel Gyurta, the 2012 Olympic gold medalist in the 200 breaststroke and former world record holder in the long course version of the event as well. Koch had an amazing lead-up to the 2016 Rio Olympics that included seemingly endless 2:07’s in the long course version of the event through the winter and spring.
However, Koch only finished seventh in the 200 breaststroke in the finals of the event in Rio, a disappointing performance given his times in the lead-up to the meet. The rest of Koch’s performances in 2016 have been more in line with his pre-Rio form, with him grabbing all but one of the 200 breaststrokes during the 2016 FINA World Cup Circuit and posting the fastest 8 short course times in the event this season, including this most current world record. The German swimmer will have another crack at the record in less than a month, when he competes at the 2016 Short Course World Championships.
Congratulations Marco Koch on earning Swimming World’s LumaLanes Performance of the Week!
Special Thanks to LumaLanes for sponsoring Swimming World’s Performance of the Week.
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