Italian teenage swim sensation Sara Curtis has broken the world 50m backstroke world record again, just a day after eclipsing the global mark of Australian great Kaylee McKeown.
The 19-year-old Curtis won gold in 26.56 seconds in the final of the European Championships in Paris on Thursday, clipping another 0.07 seconds of the time of 26.63 she had set in Wednesday's semi-finals.
That time had obliterated the three-year-old mark of five-time Olympic champion McKeown, who'd clocked 26.86 when winning a World Cup race in Budapest in 2023.
It continued the historic week for the Savilgliano-born Curtis, who has a Nigerian mother and Italian father, as she's become the first Black swimmer to hold an individual long-course world record.
Mary-Ambre Moluh, from France, finished half a second down on Curtis to take the silver, while Britain's Lauren Cox took bronze.
"I’m happy I managed it again. It’s absurd, another crazy feat," Curtis told Italian TV station Rai 2.
It was the third medal in Paris for the young University of Virginia college star Curtis, who also took bronze in 100m freestyle and silver in the 4x100m freestyle relay.
The teenager had been inching towards the world record all year, having broken the Italian record and the European record earlier in the season. "From the moment I set off for Virginia, that’s all I thought about, the record. A dream and an immense goal,” she admitted.
But it's been a tough spell for McKeown, who had to pull out of both the recent Commonwealth Games and the current Pan Pacific Championships because she's suffering from glandular fever.
The 25-year-old is determined to get back into top shape for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, where Curtis shapes to be one of the pool stars.
Great Britain’s Filip Nowacki claimed the European 200m breaststroke gold, continuing his terrific rise.
The 18-year-old was fresh from winning gold for Jersey at the Commonwealth Games -- only the second ever for his little Channel Island home.
