Copyright news
Competing at the swimming World Cup event in Toronto, O’Callaghan was in a league of her own as she destroyed the field, stopping the clock at 1:49.36, more than two seconds ahead of fellow Aussie Lani Pallister. A commentator exclaimed: “Mollie O’Callaghan is absolutely flying in Toronto!” Last weekend in Illinois, O’Callaghan become the first woman to break one minute, 50 seconds for the 200m, touching the wall in 1:49.77. After breaking the world record again, she is now 0.95sec faster than any other female in history — Siobhan Haughey of Hong Kong had the previous world record of 1:50.31 from 2021. She remains the only woman to break that barrier and picked up two cheques for US$10,000 for breaking the world record and winning the 200m freestyle at every World Cup event. Watch Mollie O’Callaghan’s world record swim in the video above “If you set your mind to it, you can achieve it,” the 21-year-old said after setting a new world record. “And if you put the hard work in it and have a great support team behind you, anything’s possible. “I think I have to give it all to the people behind me, my physio, to my coach (Dean Boxall), to everyone who’s done a little nitty gritty for me to perform on this day.” O’Callaghan’s former training partner, the recently retired Ariarne Titmus, still holds the long course (50m) 200m freestyle world record in a time of 1:52.23. In the 100m backstroke in Toronto, Kaylee McKeown (54.49sec) surged down the final lap to pip American Regan Smith (54.57) in another tight battle between the two rivals. On Friday, Hungary’s Hubert Kos set a new world record in the men’s 200m backstroke in a time of 1:45.12, breaking the previous mark set by Australia’s Mitch Larkin back in 2015. Canada’s Josh Liendo also broke the men’s 100m butterfly world record in a time of 47.68.
