IRVINE, Calif. — American Kate Douglass set a world record in the 50-meter freestyle preliminaries Saturday at Pan Pacific Championships, going 23.49 seconds and setting up a titanic duel between her and former world record holder Gretchen Walsh in the evening’s finals.“Definitely wasn’t expecting that,” Douglass said. “I definitely knew I could do a 23 this morning but was not expecting to go the world record this morning. Put together a good race, but I still think there’s a lot of things I could clean up a little bit.”The freestyle mark is Douglass’ second world record of the meet. She led the Americans to a world record in the 4×100-meter mixed medley relay Wednesday night, splitting a blistering 51.01 on a relay start. She was one-hundredth off the individual world record in the 100-meter freestyle Friday night, leading off the 4×100-meter freestyle relay in 51.69.
SHE DID IT AGAIN!
Kate Douglass breaks the WORLD RECORD in the 50m free with a BLISTERING time of 23.49. 🔥...#OmegaOfficialTimeKeeper pic.twitter.com/vBrEa3ZCZJ
— USA Swimming (@USASwimming) August 15, 2026“Just barely missing the world record last night kind of fueled me a little bit for today,” she said.Douglass and Walsh traded the 50-meter freestyle world record earlier this summer, with Douglas swimming it in 23.59 in June. Nine days later, Walsh did it in 23.55 to take the record until Douglass’ swim Saturday. Walsh went 23.78 in preliminaries. Douglass and her were the top two qualifiers.“My freestyle has been feeling really good, and I’m kind of just using that to get me to feel like I’m on top of the water and feel like I can go world records,” she said.The 24-year-old Douglass, capable of setting world-class times in the 50-meter freestyle and 200-meter breaststroke alike, is one of the most versatile swimmers in the world. She has five Olympic medals over the past two Games, including an individual gold in the 200-meter breaststroke. She swam the preliminary heats of the 200-meter breaststroke Saturday shortly after her world record and placed second with a time of 2 minutes, 23.42 seconds. The double wasn’t an easy one: She said she “felt I was going to throw up, pass out on the block there. Just kind of hard to come down from that excitement and turn around and do another race.”She might have an even more challenging program Saturday. The women’s 4×100-meter medley relay is in the evening, and Douglass is the top American freestyler: the logical anchor leg. Asked if she has a three-race evening in her, she said, “I think we’re gonna try.”“I think I need to talk to the coaches about that, but I do feel like I’d love to give it a shot,” Douglass said. “That would just be a really good challenge for me.”Douglass has three medals so far at Pan Pacs: gold in the mixed medley relay and 4×100-meter freestyle relay and silver in the 50-meter butterfly. She swam the 100-meter breaststroke instead of the individual 100-meter freestyle and finished fourth.The Pan Pacific Championships is the biggest meet of the year for swimmers in the Americas and Oceania. The European Aquatics Championships are also happening this week, and three world records have fallen there. Sara Curtis set the women’s 50-meter freestyle mark twice in two days, and Germany’s Johannes Liebmann broke American Bobby Finke’s record in the men’s 1,500-meter freestyle.
