Overview
- Douglass set the new long-course 50m freestyle world record with a time of 23.59 seconds at a meet in Indianapolis on Saturday.
- Her time improved on Sarah Sjöström’s three-year-old mark by 0.02 seconds, the kind of margin that often decides sprint records.
- Douglass said she was shocked by the result in comments to NBC and called the swim much faster than she expected.
- The mark was a large jump from her previous personal best of 23.91 seconds and came from a swimmer best known for middle-distance breaststroke.
- The record returns the long-course 50m freestyle title to a U.S. swimmer after roughly 40 years and could reshuffle sprint expectations ahead of major international meets.