{"id":507432,"date":"2022-06-23T01:39:39","date_gmt":"2022-06-23T08:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=507432"},"modified":"2022-06-23T07:23:43","modified_gmt":"2022-06-23T14:23:43","slug":"world-championships-sarah-sjostrom-chases-history-making-fourth-50m-butterfly-crown-zhang-yufei-the-fastest-qualifier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/world-championships-sarah-sjostrom-chases-history-making-fourth-50m-butterfly-crown-zhang-yufei-the-fastest-qualifier\/","title":{"rendered":"World Championships: Sarah Sjostrom Chases History For Fourth 50m Butterfly Crown; Zhang Yufei The Fastest Qualifier"},"content":{"rendered":"

World Championships: Sarah Sjostrom Chases History For Fourth 50m Butterfly Crown; Zhang Yufei The Fastest Qualifier<\/strong><\/p>\n

Swedish super swimmer Sarah Sjostrom<\/strong> will be chasing a record fourth consecutive 50m butterfly world crown in Budapest after comfortably\u00a0 qualifying for tonight’s semi-finals with her winning heat time of 25.43 at the Duna Arena today.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old has won the title in 2015 in Kazan, 2017 in Budapest and 2019 in Gwangju, returning to the Hungarian capital in search of a history making fourth title.<\/p>\n

The Rio Olympic champion in the 100m butterfly and an eight-time world champion Sjostrom recovered from a broken hand to race at her third Olympics in Tokyo, winning silver behind Australia’s Emma McKeon<\/strong> in the 50m freestyle.<\/p>\n

The world record holder since 2014 was an impressive winner of the final heat ahead of the Netherlands’ Maaike de Waard<\/strong> (25.92) and Italy’s Silvia de Pietro<\/strong> (26.08).<\/p>\n

But it was the second of the seeded heats where the fastest qualifier came from with a convincing win to Tokyo Olympic 200m butterfly gold medallist China’s Zhang Yufei<\/strong> in 25.39 ahead of Melanie<\/strong> Henique<\/strong> (France) 25.61 – third fastest overall and Sara Junevik<\/strong> (Sweden) 25.94 – the sixth fastest.<\/p>\n

It was Claire Curzan<\/strong> (USA) who won the first of the three seeded heats in 25.93 – making her the fifth fastest through to the semi-finals.<\/p>\n