Jamaican swimmer Alia Atkinson has tied the World Record in the 100 short course meters breaststroke on day 1 of the 2016 FINA World Cup’s opening stop in Chartres, France.
Atkinson produced an impressive performance to equal her 100m breaststroke world record time of 1:02.36 minutes on Friday.
The three-time Olympian, who was the second fastest qualifier from the heats with 1:04.89 minutes, behind American Katie Meili (1:04.49), exploded in the final in the 25-metre Lodyssa swimming pool to equal her record set in Doha, Qatar, in 2014.
With a reaction time of 0.63 from lane five, Atkinson clocked 29.33 seconds at the half-way mark and held her form to secure a comfortable victory.
She won ahead of Meili, who clocked in at 1:03.52 minutes, followed by Russia’s Yuliya Efimova in 1:04.14.
Alia Atkinson failed in her attempt to win Jamaica’s first medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics in Brazil after finishing last in the final of the women’s 100-metre breaststroke.
According to SwimSam, back in short course, where she’s been one of the best underwater breaststrokers in the world for more than half-a-decade, she’ll get some consolation from this win. It earns her $1,500USD for the event win and 10 bonus points toward the overall FINA World Cup standings, and barring another World Record at this meet, will also get her big cluster points toward the $50,000 1st-place prize. She’s now guaranteed a minimum of 46 points after day 1, with more likely to come.
For comparison, Hungarian Katinka Hosszu finished the first stop in last year’s series with 81 points from all of her races combined to sit in 1st place. A win gets 12 points, a 2nd-place finish gets 9, and a 3rd-place finish gets 6, with bonus points for tying or breaking World Records and to the swimmers with the best single-swim performances in each meet.
Unfortunately for Atkinson, the $10,000 prize available for World Records isn’t handed out if the record is tied – which she’s now fallen victim to twice in her career.
