World Championships: Kate Douglass, Evgeniia Chikunova Set For Long-Awaited 200 Breaststroke Showdown
One year ago, Kate Douglass dethroned Tatjana Smith (née Schoenmaker) in the 200 breaststroke Olympic final, claiming her spot as queen of the event moving into the next quadrennium while the South African headed straight into retirement. Since then, Douglass has expanded her event repertoire, her first international appearance in the 100 breaststroke yielding a silver medal after she cut a second from her best time in less than two months.
Under normal conditions, those results would establish Douglass as the clear favorite for a world title in the 200 breast, but the event has a new key player returning to major international competition after a three-year absence.
Evgeniia Chikunova was 16 years old when she made her Olympic final debut as a representative of the Russian Olympic Committee at the Tokyo Games, finishing fourth in both the 100 and 200 breast. She had a real chance of reaching the podium in the 200 breast after clocking 2:20.57 in the semifinal round, but Annie Lazor got the better of Chikunova by four hundredths in the final to secure bronze.
But by the following summer, Chikunova was ruled out of international waters like nearly all Russian swimmers as a result of the country’s invasion of Ukraine. It was not until late 2024 that a substantial number of Russian swimmers, including Chikunova, would receive clearance to participate in major meets as neutral athletes. That meant she missed world-title matchups from 2022 through 2024 as well as the Olympic final.
Bad timing as Chikunova was becoming the best 200 breaststroker in the world. At the Russian National Championships in April 2023, she swam a time of 2:17.55 in the event, obliterating the previous world record by 1.4 seconds. At the same meet, Chikunova clocked 1:04.92 in the 100 breast, faster than all but one swimmer would go in the Worlds final three months later.
During that same span, Douglass reached the 200 breast podium at all three World Championships before her golden swim in Paris. She could claim to be the best in the world, only with that lingering question of what Chikunova could do if she was in the pool at the same time. For 2024, she would end the year with the world’s third-quickest time (2:19.74), but an actual head-to-head matchup with Douglass would not have to wait much longer.
Chikunova was cleared in time to compete at the Short Course World Championships last December, and marked her return with a silver medal in the 200 breast, albeit with Douglass two-and-a-half seconds ahead while shattering the world record. Most assumed that the race in between the two swimmers in the 50-meter pool would be much more competitive. Finally, it’s time to find out.
Entering Thursday’s 200 breast prelims in Singapore, Chikunova holds the world’s fastest time in 2025 at 2:20.36, with Douglass just behind at 2:20.78. The only other swimmer to have gone under 2:22 this year is Great Britain’s Angharad Evans, but she has struggled thus far in Singapore, failing to advance to the semifinals in the 100 after entering as a strong medal favorite. After three rounds of racing, it would be a major surprise if Douglass and Chikunova did not occupy the top-two spots in this event.
To determine a favorite, we must consider the results from both swimmers thus far. Douglass swam a phenomenal second length to nearly steal 100 breast gold, splitting 34.63, but Chikunova was four hundredths coming home faster as she pulled into fifth place. Her top time at this meet is 1:05.97, well off her lifetime best but enough to suggest a sub-2:20 performance is in her arsenal in the 200. Douglass has also showed strong form between her 100 breast silver and her 400 free relay split of 51.90, the best on the American team.
Douglass is typically the swimmer closing in on her competition down the stretch; a few extra meters in the 100 breast final might have been sufficient to run down gold medalist Anna Elendt. But this time she might have to jump on the pace and hope to have enough of a lead to hold off Chikunova, hot in pursuit of the world title she has waited three years to seek.
