World Championships, Day 6 Finals: Kate Douglass Crushes Second-Fastest Time Ever in 200 Breast for Runaway Gold
One year after winning Olympic gold, Kate Douglass has cemented her status as the international queen of the 200 breaststroke. This time, the 23-year-old American had to grapple with the world-record holder competing at a long course World Championships, but Douglass blasted off each wall to defeat neutral swimmer Evgeniia Chikunova for gold.
This was the first time Douglass, the Olympic champion, had faced off in long course against Chikunova, who holds the world record at 2:17.55. Entering the meet, Tatjana Smith (née Schoenmaker) was the only other swimmer in history to break 2:19, and she retired after last year’s Olympic Games. But in this race, the race was never close after the opening lap.
The versatile American jumped into a big lead on the second 50, splitting almost a second ahead of anyone else in the field, and she reached the wall significantly under world-record pace in 1:06.54. Chikunova closed slightly on the third length, but Douglass remained well clear and under world-record pace. She could not quite keep up with the record coming home, but she did annihilate her best time while storming to a dominant win.
Douglass finished in 2:18.50, knocking three-quarters of a second off the American record of 2:19.24 she swam in the Olympic final. The time was the second-fastest performance ever recorded, and she also surpassed the Championships record of 2:19.11 set by Denmark’s Rikke Pedersen in 2013. Chikunova also got under 2:20, her time of 2:19.96 earning her a long course World Championships medal for the first time.
As the top-two swimmers stole the show, a battle for bronze developed behind them. Great Britain’s Angharad Evans rebounded from a disappointing 100 breast to reach the final and swim for third place for much of the race, but she faded down the stretch. That gave an opening for South Africa’s Kaylene Corbett and neutral athlete Alina Zmushka to come through the field, and they recorded matching times of 2:23.52 to share bronze. Evans ended up fifth in 2:24.21.
Douglass has been one of the few Americans to emerge relatively unscathed from the stomach illness which has hampered the team’s results this week in Singapore. Competing in the 100 breaststroke for the first time at a major meet, Douglass was the surprise top qualifier into the final and ended up winning silver, crushing her bet time by a half-second in the process. She also had the fastest split on the U.S. women’s silver-medal-winning 400 free relay.
Douglass and Chikunova entered the meet considered the big favorites in the 200 breaststroke. Douglass had won medals in the event at the past three World Championships before taking down Smith for Olympic gold in Paris, putting up an American-record time of 2:19.24 in the process. But in the months later, the only active swimmer ahead of Douglass on the all-time list would re-emerge.
Chikunova had never before won a long course international medal in the 200 breast. She made her debut in the Tokyo Olympic final as a 16-year-old, missing the podium by just four hundredths. In the middle of the three-year span when Russian athletes were largely excluded from international competition, Chikunova blasted her sensational world record.
The two standouts raced for the first time at the Short Course World Championships in December, and Douglass took care of business by two-and-a-half seconds, taking down the short course world record in the process. In a long course rematch less than nine months later, the result slightly closer but similarly dominant.
