Gretchen Walsh lowers her 100m butterfly record for the fourth time | Sports

Walsh won in 54.33 seconds at the Fort Lauderdale Open in Florida, where he set his previous record of 54.60s.

American swimmer Gretchen Walsh clocked 54.33 seconds in the women’s 100 meter butterfly to lower her world record for the fourth time at the Fort Lauderdale Open in Florida, United States.

Walsh on Saturday cut 27-hundredths of a second off the previous world record of 54.60 he set in the same pool at the Pro Swim event last May. He broke the record twice in one day at last year’s meeting and has now broken the record four times.

Winner of three world titles in Singapore last year, Walsh is now the second fastest woman in the event’s history, with Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom at 55.48 seconds.

She was four seconds faster than Claire Curzan, who clocked 58.44 for silver, and the fastest in the world this season by more than two seconds.

Walsh now owns more than a third of the 56-minute swims in the event’s history.

The 23-year-old joked that he would make the world record “of the year” when he took to social media shortly after the performance.

“I can’t thank WR, the crowd, and the pool enough,” he said in an Instagram post.

French Olympic champion Leon Marchand took two titles to take his week to four.

On Saturday, the four-time Olympic gold medalist won the 200 meters breaststroke in 2 minutes 9.04 seconds, her best time of the season, and followed it up with a victory in the 200m individual medley in 1:57.28.

Hungary’s Hubert Kos, who trains with Marchand under former Michael Phelps mentor Bob Bowman in Texas, tied for second in the medley with Carson Foster, both touching 1:57.95.

Marchand, who is preparing for the European Championship which starts in Paris on July 31, has used the early meetings this season to test himself in the unfamiliar conditions.

But in Fort Lauderdale, the 23-year-old has re-elected the athletics program that saw him win four gold medals at the 2024 Paris Games.

Katie Ledecky opened the day with an 8:12.66 in the women’s 800m freestyle to finish more than 30 seconds ahead of Katie Grimes’ 8:40.80.

Ledecky, the most decorated female swimmer in history with 14 Olympic medals, came close to finishing in 8:08.57 in March.