American swimmer Gretchen Walsh once again broke her own 100 meter butterfly world record for the fourth time.
She lowered her own world record for the fourth time by clocking 54.33 seconds in the women’s 100m butterfly at the Fort Lauderdale Open in Florida, United States.
Walsh, who won three world titles in Singapore last year, is now more than a second faster than the second-fastest woman in the history of the event, Sweden’s Sara Sjöström with a best time of 55.48 seconds.
Walsh on Saturday shaved 27 hundredths of a second off the previous world record of 54.60, set in the same pool at a Pro Swim event last May. She had broken the record twice in one day at last year’s meet and has now broken the record four times.
The 23-year-old took to social media shortly after her achievement, joking about making the world record an “annual thing”.
“Couldn’t be more thankful for WR, the crowd and the pool,” she said in a post on Instagram.
Walsh now owns more than a third of all sub-56 second swims in the history of the event.
France’s Olympic hero Leon Marchand took two titles to take his tally of titles on the week to four.
The four-time Olympic gold medalist on Saturday won the 200m breaststroke in 2:9.04 seconds, her best time this season, and followed it up with a 200m individual medley victory in 1:57.28.
