Australia’s Brooke Hanson set a record with her fourth individual title and American Ian Crocker set a world 50m butterfly record in Indiana on Sunday at the World Short-Course Swim Championships.
Hanson won the 100m breaststroke — in which she finished second at the Athens Olympics — and the 200m individual medley to give her an unprecedented four individual crowns in one meet and five titles overall, matching the meet mark.
”I can’t believe it,” Hanson said. ”I knew I had an unbelievable amount of events coming here. My goal was to get one gold medal. To get five is a dream come true. I’ve never been this happy. All the hard work has paid off.”
Crocker (22) won the 50m butterfly final in 22,71 seconds, breaking the old mark of 22,74 set by Australian Geoff Huegill at Berlin on January 26 2002. The Athens 100m butterfly runner-up missed the record in the semifinals by 0.02 seconds.
”I got off the blocks a little quicker and stayed under a little longer after the turn,” Crocker said. ”I realised how close I was and it got me motivated. You can find two-hundredths in a lot of places.”
Crocker pulled out of the 100m freestyle to enhance his record bid.
”I really wanted to be able to walk away from this meet with a world record,” Crocker said. ”I made a good decision.”
Hanson (26) won the 100m breaststroke in 1:05,36 and took the 200m individual medley in 2:09,81. She earlier won the 50m breaststroke and 100m individual medley and helped the Aussie 4x100m medley relay set a world record of 3:54,95 on Saturday.
”The one I wanted the most was the 100m breast. When you are announced as the Olympic silver medallist, you don’t want to lose the race.
”I never thought I would win five gold medals. I had some friends tell me you can get post-Olympic depression. I made sure I didn’t.”
American Jenny Thompson — who anchored a United States 4x100m freestyle relay victory in 3:35,07 — and Slovakia’s Martina Moravcova each won three titles in 1999, the best showing in any world short-course meet until Hanson’s heroics.
With five crowns, Hanson equalled the record one-meet title total set by China’s Jingyi Le in 1993. She could break the mark by winning the 200m breaststroke on Monday’s final day of competition.
”They just dunked me in there. I’m not expecting anything in that,” she said. ”I’m just in there for fun.”
Hanson said she will not fully comprehend what she has done until she is on the airplane flight home to Melbourne.
”I don’t think it has set in yet,” she said. ”I’m just on a roll and enjoying my swimming.”
Thompson, a 12-time Olympic medallist swimming in the final meet of her 17-year career, qualified for Monday’s 100m butterfly and 50m freestyle finals.
The 31-year-old American won the 50m butterfly title on Saturday and joined Amanda Weir, Kara Joyce and Lindsay Benko in the relay triumph.
Germany’s Thomas Rupprath, an Olympic medley relay silver medallist, won the 50m backstroke in 23,51 seconds with Aussie Matt Welsh second in 23,60.
Rupprath also led 100 individual-medley finalists in 52,88 seconds, the fourth-best time to date in the event but 0.30 seconds off the world record he set last year in Berlin.
American Haley Cope’s top 50m backstroke semifinal time, 27,14 seconds, was also the fourth best to date. — Sapa-AFP