Record festival of the swimmers on the penultimate day of the short course world championships in Melbourne: Anna Elendt, Angelina Köhler and the men’s 4×50 meter individual medley relay with Ole Braunschweig, Lucas Matzerath, Marius Kusch and Josha Salchow improved German records, and there were also three other world records.
It started with the men, who finished sixth in the final in 1:31.79 minutes and were therefore a hundredth of a second faster than the German team in 2018. Kusch was from this season again this time. The record fell somewhat as the Italian relay swam the world record in 1m29.72s. “First World Cup final, first record: This is the perfect end to my Australian adventure,” said Salchow after a six-month semester abroad Down Under. During this time he also trained with Australia’s top stars.
Köhler’s new record in the semi-finals over 100 meters butterfly had already been indicated in the preliminary heat. In 56.56 seconds, the Berliner was already close to the German record set by Alexandra Wenk in 2015 (56.43 seconds). In the semifinals, the 22-year-old literally flew through the water and landed in 56.23 seconds.
“I’ve always wanted to swim a record. It’s unusual for me to succeed on the short course, because I don’t really like turns,” said Köhler, looking forward to Sunday with anticipation: “Now I’m curious to see what will happen in the final as possible.”
There, Anna Elendt also has another chance to win a medal in the 50-meter breaststroke, but the woman from Frankfurt has to beat her record of 29.52 seconds set on Saturday. With her time, the bronze medalist in the 100m breaststroke finished seventh in the final. The big favorite for gold is Ruta Meilutyte from Lithuania, who swam the world record in 28.37 seconds.
The Australian women’s 4x50m medley relay set another world record in 1:42.35. So far there have been ten world records in these title fights, eight of them through relays alone.
