How Kate Douglass Swam to a 49.64 in the 100 Freestyle
At last week’s United States Trials for the Short Course World Championships, Kate Douglass swam some historic times. Her best swim of the meet may have been her last, the 100 freestyle. Going into the meet, Douglass already held the world record in this event with a time of 49.93, the only woman ever to break 50 seconds. Many others have come close to breaking 50 before. Cate Campbell, Gretchen Walsh, and Marrit Steenbergen have all been 50.3 or better, but only Douglass has found her way under 50. She has now done it twice.
Race Strategy
Douglass has plenty of natural speed. It is something she relies on heavily in this race. In her previous world record swim, she split a 23.9 in the first 50. This time, she did not hesitate to go out even quicker. Douglass flipped in a time of 23.5, almost half a second under her own world record pace.
Most of her speed in the opening half comes from her legs. Douglass has some of the best underwaters in the world. At Trials, she went further off the first turn than everyone except Walsh. She also utilized her kick. Her legs kicked harder than anyone else in the field, which allowed her to take fewer strokes. On her second 25, she took only 11 strokes. For comparison, she took 13 and 15 strokes on the third and fourth 25s, respectively.
In this race specifically, Douglass went for it on the first 50, but was slightly slower on the second 50. Her final 50 saw a significant decrease in her underwater length. On the first turn, she came up at around 12 meters. The final two turns saw her come up at about eight meters. Her final 50 split was a 26.1, 0.1 slower than it was in her previous world record.
A 49.6 is an incredible swim, the fastest in history, but Douglass can get even faster. One thing that can improve come the World Championships is her circle swimming during the race. Douglass swims up the right side of the lane rope every 25. She swims the race like it’s a practice. By doing this, she is swimming more meters than she needs to do. If she can swim up the middle rather than the sides, then she will drop even more time just from that adjustment alone.
Comparisons
Douglass is the fastest in history by a good amount, but why? Marrit Steenbergen is the second fastest woman in the world this year in the 100 free. Recently, she swam to a time of 50.32 at the final World Cup stop. Steenbergen has very effective underwaters, but they are slower kicks. She goes to about 10 meters every time on the final 50, about two meters more than Douglass did at Trials. It would be more effective to have quicker kicks and less time underwater. That is the approach that Douglass takes. Even though she doesn’t kick as far out, her kicks are much quicker. This gives her more momentum coming up to the surface. Douglass carries her momentum extremely well. She has a fast turn and goes into fast underwater kicks, which leads to fast swimming.
Both Walsh and Steenbergen take about one less stroke per length than Douglass. Douglass does not kick out as far, yet she only takes one more stroke. This means that she is much more efficient. She can maintain a high stroke rate while being more efficient than the rest. This is the ultimate recipe for success.
Douglass has proven she can do it all. This upcoming World Championships in Beijing will further prove that. Good thing for her, there are still improvements that can be made. With an elite coach like Todd DeSorbo, those improvements will be made. Currently, her 100 free in the short course pool is far beyond the rest. On a bigger stage, Douglass should start to hunt the 48-second mark, an unreal thought.
