Ranomi Kromowidjojo of the Netherlands kept her strong meet going with a win in the 50 butterfly on the fourth night of the 2018 FINA Short Course World Swimming Championships. Her time of 24.47 is the fastest in the world so far this year and was good for a Championship Meet Record. The previous mark was set by Sarah Sjostrom in 2014 with a time of 24.58.
Right behind were Australia’s Holly Barratt in 24.80 and USA’s Kelsi Dahlia in 24.97. Barratt is now tied for third in the world rankings while Dahlia’s previous swim of 24.93 holds fifth.
Dahlia (on her race): “That really wasn’t what I wanted to do, but it’s okay I got another medal for Team USA. I just don’t think I hit my first breakout as well as I had hoped.”
Immediately after the race Barratt said: “I’m really happy with the result. Firstly, my swims in the heat and the semi, and then swimming the 50 fly in some relays as well, so I think all these races have fixed little things and it all came together in this one.
“This is my first individual world level medal which is really exciting, and I am about half way through my program here, so this is good going forward,” she added.
The women were followed by Melanie Henique of France (25.02), Maaike de Waard of the Netherlands (25.32), Wang Yichun from China (25.38), Haley Black of Canada (25.75) and Aliena Schmidtke from Germany (25.76).
Congratulations