World records for Walker, Thompson
Neil Walker won his third gold medal with his fourth world record and Jenny Thompson reset her own butterfly world mark on the third day of the FINA Short Course World Championships here.
Walker won the 100m individual medley with a world record of 52.79.
"The last five meters, I thought, 'I have it. I know it.' I hit every turn right. This morning I missed a couple of walls. I just tried to drive into the wall."
Walker, with one day to go in the Championships, has earned three golds and one silver and broken four world records, seven American records and six meet records, while collecting $48,250 in world-record prize money.
"This has been unexpected, that's for sure," said Walker. "I came into this meet with high hopes and then for the first time in a long time, I not only met them, I exceeded them."
Walker first jumped onto the scene when he narrowly missed making the 1996 U.S. Olympic team by 1/100ths. In 1997, he broke Pablo Morales' 11-year-old American record in the 100m butterfly, beating Australia's Michael Klim at the Pan Pacifics. At the 1998 World Championships, he joined Matt Biondi as the only American male to compete in four individual events at the World meet, but then he finished ninth in three events by less than a tenth in each.
Tonight, Walker said, "Having a positive mental attitude brings me luck. If you think positively something good will always come out of it." Walker has a real shot at seven medals. Tomorrow he swims in the 100m backstroke, 50m butterfly and the 400m medley relay.
He scratched out of swimming the 100m freestyle semi-final tonight, after breaking the American record and nearly dropping Alexander Popov's world record.
"I'm really glad I made that decision because that's the worse I've ever hurt in the 100m back," Walker said of swimming the 100m IM and 100m backstroke in consecutive events. "I knew that was going to happen and I didn't want to disappoint myself (in the 100m free). I really thought that I had swam that race about as good as I could have this morning."
Jenny Thompson didn't swim in a final tonight. She scratched the 50m freestyle to concentrate on the 100m butterfly semi-final. She knew what she was doing. She broke her own world record in the 100m fly with a 56.56. She now owns eight of the top nine swims ever in the event.
"Everything went right," Thompson said. "A Danish chiropractor helped me with a kink in my neck before finals. I felt really good this morning and in warm-ups and I was kind of worried, because sometimes when I feel too good, I get weak at the end of the race. But I held together well."
Lindsay Benko loves 70s music. Now she owns a lot of 70s records, like the 200m and 400m freestyles. Before this meet, the two oldest women's records on the books were Sippy Woodhead's 1978 performances in those two events. On Thursday, leading off the U.S. 800m free relay, Benko took down Woodhead's American record--the oldest remaining record in any format. Tonight Benko won the 400m freestyle, breaking another Woodhead American record in the process.
Benko went 4:02.44. Woodhead's record was 4:02.59.
"I'm pretty excited," Benko said. "It's my first world title ever; I hope I can sleep tonight. I have a lot of events tomorrow.
"There were a lot of great American swimmers in the late 70s and early 80s. To get some of their records, especially Sippy's is an honor." |
