Kazan, Russia: South Africa’s Cameron van der Burgh broke the 50-metre breaststroke world record in Tuesday morning’s heats at the world swimming championships as his battle with Britain’s Adam Peaty resumed.
Van der Burgh, who is defending his title, clocked an official time of 26.62sec to shave 0.05sec off the record he set at the 2009 championships in the era when performance-enhancing neoprene suits were still permitted.
Peaty had swum exactly 26.62sec at the European championships in Berlin last August, but his time has still not been ratified by swimming’s governing body Fina.
Van der Burgh, the Olympic 100 metres champion, lost out to Peaty on the wall in Monday’s world championship final over the same distance.
The rivals are set to battle again over the shorter distance in Tuesday night’s semi and Wednesday’s final.
“I am really happy after the bitter-sweet disappointment of last night, when I didn’t get the luck of the touch. But I guess I had it today,” said Van der Burgh.
“We are all so close, it’s not going to be a one or two-horse race, there are a lot of guys in the mix and it’s going to very tight.”
Peaty, who was second-fastest into the semi-finals at just 0.06sec slower than the South African in his heat, admitted he was confused as to who held the world record after Van der Burgh matched his Berlin time.
“It will be nice to get out there tonight with my full game head-on to focus on the race,” he said.
“I am fully capable of going faster than... my old, well, equal world record.”
Slovenia’s Damir Dugonjic (26.70) and Kevin Cordes of the USA (26.93) also posted fast times going into the semis.
Australia’s Christian Sprenger, who won silver in the event two years ago in Barcelona, missed the semis by just 0.03 at 27.54.
This is the fifth time a world record has been broken in Kazan and it is the first men’s record to fall at a world championships since 2011.
Katie Ledecky carried her impressive Kazan form into the 200 metres freestyle heats and the 18-year-old triple world record-holder was the fastest in a strong field.
She has set herself a punishing schedule and will have just 20 minutes between the 1,500 metres freestyle final and her 200 metres semi-final in Tuesday’s evening session, with the 800 metres freestyle heats still to come on Friday.
Fresh from breaking the six-year-old 200 metres individual medley world record on Monday, Katinka Hosszu was second fastest in the heats at 0.50sec behind Ledecky, with reigning world champion Missy Franklin of the USA at 0.60 back.
“I slept well last night, the 200 is a different animal — it’s more of a sprint for me,” said Ledecky.
“Katinka is swimming really well, there are a lot of fast European girls in there as well as Missy Franklin in there, so it’s going to be a good race.”
Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh is on course to win his first worlds gold for a decade having qualified fastest into Tuesday’s 200 metres butterfly semi-finals in a time of 1 minute 53.71 seconds.
China’s long-distance expert Sun Yang was sixth fastest into the men’s 800 freestyle final on Wednesday.
Connor Jaeger of the USA was the fastest from the 800 heats in seven minutes 44.77 seconds, while Australian teenager Mack Horton, who swam the year’s fastest time coming into Kazan, was fifth quickest at 2.31 seconds back.
