Katinka Hosszú rocked the Short Track Swimming World Championships with new records

The Iron Lady keeps on breaking and setting newer and newer records, and this is exactly what she did in Windsor. After ruling the Short Track Swimming World Cup, she went on by making history at the Short Track World Championships. Seven gold medals, new world records – this is Katinka Hosszú.

Hosszabbitas.hu writes that on the first day, she started out by winning 400 m medley and finishing in second place in 200 m freestyle. Then she won 200 m butterfly and 100 m backstroke on the second day, thus making it to the top of the all-time ranking list: in point of individual gold medals she took over the lead from the American Jenny Thompson, while in point of total medals she caught up to Thompson, the Swedish Therese Alshammar and the Slovakian Jana Moracova.

Even though she won her first ever World Championships medal in 200 m butterfly back in 2009, and then her first Short Track World Championship title in 2012, she kind of let this event rest after 2014, and focused on backstroke besides the medleys. But she stepped her game up in butterfly again at this year’s World Cup series to now top it off with a gold medal. She was in the lead the whole time, no one could doubt her win.

At 100 m backstroke Katinka was the title defender and although she had to face serious opponents like Emily Seebohm and Mie Nielsen, the Iron Lady beat everyone from the second lane. She competed as a real Olympic Champion and approached her own world record by half second.

“The truth is, I found it hard to get hyped-up for this World Championships after the Olympic Games. It’s like I still have a little hungover from Rio, which means that I sometimes find it hard to concentrate on certain events” said Katinka after day 2.

The next day she went on by winning her fourth gold medal at the championships in 200 m backstroke. Looking back on the past, it’s crazy to see that she only needed three days to achieve what she fought so hard for throughout a whole competition in Doha two years ago. After her final, she did great in the semi-final of 100 m medley, but couldn’t switch to 800 m freestyle due to the tense programme.

The following day she went on by winning another gold medal in 100 m medley (10 golds and 19 medals all together at this point). No one could take up the race with her, it seems like Katinka is competing only with herself (and her previous time results) in certain events.

For instance, 200 m medley is an event where no one was able to defeat Katinka on short track since 2012, and also where in the last three seasons of the World Cup she triumphed 26/26 times. The same thing happened in Windsor: Katinka won her 6^th (!) gold medal, thus setting another record as she is the first swimmer to win 6 individual gold medals at a World Championships (both long and short track). Moreover, she came in second in 50 m backstroke.

On the last day, Katinka had one more event, the 100 m butterfly. She knew that it would be tough to beat Worrell, but she pushed so hard in the end, that she set a new Hungarian record and won her 7^th gold medal. Incredible. Hungary finished in the 4^th place of the medal table, however, if Katinka was a country herself, she would’ve came in second after the USA regarding gold medals.

“I’m very happy for this last medal, you can probably tell as well. This was my easiest night, because I only had one race. I could finally celebrate, because I didn’t have to think about another race. I practiced a lot, how to bear this type of pressure mentally. I also needed a good sleep for today – it was finally time to rest after the previous days, and this is one of the most important factors.”

Besides the Iron Lady, Péter Bernek won a bronze medal in 400 m freestyle and Dávid Verrasztó won a bronze medal in 400 m medley.

Photos: www.facebook.com/KatinkaHosszú

Copy editor: bm

Source: http://hosszabbitas.hu/