Okay, I have to tell you about this one, because I have read it four times and it still sounds made up. On August 15, at the Pan Pacific Championships in Irvine, California, Kate Douglass swam the 50 meter freestyle faster than any woman ever has. Then, a few hours later, she did it again. Two world records, same day, same pool. And she is from Pelham.
Twice in One Day
In the morning preliminary heats she touched the wall at 23.49 seconds. That was already a world record, taken by six hundredths of a second. Six hundredths. That is less time than it takes you to blink, and it was enough to make her the fastest woman in the history of the event.
Then came the final that night, and she went 23.19. She took three tenths off a record that was only a few hours old, which in a race this short is an enormous margin. She told SwimSwam afterward that she had to do a few double takes, because 23.1 is "scarily close to 22," and that is not somewhere she thought her sprinting was going to get.
She was named the meet's top female swimmer, and it was not just the 50. She broke the American record in the 100 meter freestyle as the leadoff swimmer on the 4x100 free relay, and she finished within one hundredth of another world record doing it. She won gold and helped set a world record in the 4x100 mixed medley relay. She anchored the 4x100 medley relay that set a Pan Pacific Championships record. She also took silver in the 200 breaststroke and the 50 butterfly. That is one week.
The Record She Was Chasing Was Her Own
Here is the part that makes it a great story instead of just a fast one. Douglass set the world record in June at 23.59, at the Pro Swim Series in Indianapolis. Nine days later her University of Virginia training partner Gretchen Walsh took it from her at 23.55. So the record she went and got back in August was one she had already owned once, and the person who had taken it swims in the lane next to her every day. Walsh finished second in the final in 23.74.
It Started at the Westchester Aquatic Club
Douglass was born in Pelham in November 2001 and graduated from Pelham Memorial High School in 2019. From age 7 to 15 she swam for the Westchester Aquatic Club, then trained with the Chelsea Piers Aquatic Club for her last two years of high school. From there it was Virginia, where she won 15 NCAA titles and finished a bachelor's degree and a master's degree, both in statistics. She has five Olympic medals: a bronze in Tokyo, then two golds and two silvers in Paris.
Pelham has about 12,000 people and one high school that everybody goes to. One of them is now the fastest woman ever to swim a 50 meter freestyle. I love that a kid doing 6 a.m. practices in Westchester ends up on a scoreboard in California with a world record next to her name.
Photos come from Kate Douglass's own page, @kaatedouglass, and thank you to her for posting them.
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