Produced by Coleman Hodges.
Reported by Loretta Race.
Swedish showstopper, Sarah Sjostrom, just threw down sheer speed tonight, clocking a new U.S. Open Record in the women’s first event. Sjostrom’s 53.12 blasted over a tenth off of the previous mark held by Australian Cate Campbell since 2008. Sjostrom split 25.83/27.29 to surge ahead of the field and touch comfortably ahead of America’s Katie Ledecky.
Did we say showstopper after the women’s 100m freestyle race? Multiply that by a few thousand and you have Sjostrom, tonight’s winner of the 100m butterfly event, again in a new U.S. Open Record. Sjostrom touched the just .01 of a second behind American Dana Vollmer at the turn (26.50 Vollmer, 26.51 Sjostrom), only to blast a 29.87 closing 50m split to take the win in a final mark of 56.38.
Sjostrom’s time surpassed the old U.S. Open time of 56.42 held by Vollmer since 2012, but Vollmer finished in fine fashion herself tonight in a time of 57.61. That time shaved just .01 of a second off of her morning swim, but is still the fastest since she returned to racing last year. Vollmer has only been improving since she has gotten back into the swing of competing, so her time tonight is good news for Americans, who still have Kelsi Worrell, Claire Donahue and a few youngsters in their butterfly arsenal.
For their efforts tonight, Sjostrom and Vollmer now own the top 2 times of the season in the event.