KAZAN: The women are getting it done at the world swimming championships.

Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden lowered her own world record in the 100m butterfly to win gold on Monday night, and then Katinka Hosszu of Hungary erased a world mark from the high-tech suit era to claim the 200m individual medley.

Earlier on Monday, American teenager Katie Ledecky bettered her own world record in the 1,500 freestyle preliminaries.

Four world records set in the first two days of pool swimming — and all by women.

“Unbelievable,” American Ryan Lochte said. “I’m glad to see world records get broken. It gets more people behind swimming so that’s awesome.”

Sjostrom first broke the mark set by American Dana Vollmer at the 2012 London Olympics in the semi-finals on Sunday. In the final, the Swede led at the turn and won by a body length, touching in 55.64 seconds.

She dipped a hundredth of a second lower than her mark a day earlier while finishing 1.41 seconds ahead of Jeanette Ottesen of Denmark.

Ottesen earned silver in 57.05 and Lu Ying of China took bronze in 57.48.

Hosszu underlined her status as the leading all-round swimmer, defending her 2013 title in the 200 medley, winning in 2 minutes, 6.12 seconds.

That bettered the old mark of 2:06.15 set by American Ariana Kukors at the 2009 worlds in Rome during a time when the sport was rocked by swimmers setting a slew of world records in rubber suits that were eventually banned.

Japan’s Kanako Watanabe took silver, 2.33 seconds behind Hosszu, while Britain’s Siobhan O’Connor claimed bronze.

Britain’s Adam Peaty secured his first world title in the men’s 100m backstroke after a whirlwind 12 months on the international scene.

The 20-year-old world record holder claimed gold from Cameron van der Burgh of South Africa in 58.52 seconds, overtaking the Olympic champion in the final three strokes to win by 0.07 seconds and add to his European and Commonwealth collection. Ross Murdoch, of Britain, won bronze.

Florent Manadou of France claimed gold in the men’s 50m butterfly, touching in 22.97 seconds to beat Brazil’s Nicolas Santos.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2015

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