Douglass Ends The Debate As Premier Racer In Battle With Chikunova
"I was really excited to race her [Chikunova] tonight. I felt like we were both gonna push each other to be better. And honestly, if I wasn’t racing her, I don’t know if I would have gone a 2:18. I think that really helped push me to be my best.” - Kate Douglass
With a 2:18.50 championship and Americas record, Kate Douglass, reigning Olympic champion for the USA in Paris last year, ended the 'what if' debate over what a race with the absent Evgeniia Chikunova, World record holder, would look like. And here it is:
Chikunova's world record stands, at 2:17.55 from a moment back home that reveals her nationality, neutrality the flag she flies in the face in a swim suit. I have no idea what she thinks of the illegal war ion Ukraine, and realise she's not in a position to comment, neither at home nor abroad. I also think this: all of that matters.
Today, however, what mattered was a race that delivered Douglass to the World crown two years after she took silver adrift Tatjana Schoenmaker at Fukuoka 2023 and three years after bronze at Budapest 2022 behind teammate Lilly King, on her swan-song in Singapore, and Australia's Jenna Strauch.
Douglass, 23, and Chikunova entered the fight as first-time adversaries in the same pool, adjoining lanes. All that had gone before was remote. Schoenmaker, now Smith, was the only swimmer beyond Chikunova who'd got inside 2:19.
If the first length told us little about where the pace and balance of the battle would go, the second length did, in bucket-loads. The first-turn gap between the American and the World record holder stood at 0.34. A length later: 1:06.54 to 1:07.84.
Chikunova closed a slither on the way to the last turn but I was all too little, too late. Douglass knew it, and, buoyed by that, swept to victory on the fastest last-lap wave in the race. She emerged to say:
“My race plan in this particular event has been to try to go out 1:06, and I know that my back half isn’t as strong as others, so I think it’s important for me to get out fast. With my 100 getting better this meet, I felt like I was capable of going out faster.”
Her 2:18.50, all-time No2 performance and inside the 2:19.11 championship mark that had survived to Denmark’s Rikke Pedersen since 2013, wiped away the American's previous best and continental record of 2:19.24, the pace of Olympic gold last year.
Kate Douglass - World Champion - all photos by Patrick B. Kraemer - all rights reserved
Asked about a debate settled, Douglass paid plaudit to her rival...
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