OMAHA — For about two
minutes, Hayley McGregory was on
top of the world. Swimming in
the second-to-last heat of the
preliminaries for the 100-meter
backstroke at the United States
Olympic trials Monday, McGregory,
a 22-year-old from Texas,
clocked a time of 59.15 to break
the world record by
six-hundredths of a second.
When McGregory made the turn
at the 50-meter mark on
world-record pace, the Qwest
Center crowd got firmly behind
her, loudly cheering her home.
Natalie Coughlin, whose
record McGregory broke, was
standing over McGregory’s lane
as she finished, getting ready
to race in the final heat. The
plan was for Coughlin, who this
year has recorded three of the
five fastest swims in the event,
to conserve her energy and
deliver a nice, easy
performance, maybe a second or
so slower than her personal
best.
When Coughlin saw McGregory’s
time, she switched gears.
Swimming with a sense of urgency
seldom seen from a top seed in
the morning, the 25-year-old
Coughlin one-upped McGregory
with a time of 59.03.
McGregory was the
world-record holder for about as
long as it takes to buy a hot
dog at the concession stands.
“Not even a whole minute,
really,” McGregory said with a
chuckle. “It’s still awesome.”
In the semifinal later in the
day, McGregory and Coughlin were
again in different heats.
McGregory clocked a 59.48. Then,
as she looked on from the deck,
Coughlin touched first in the
second heat at 59.74, 0.05 ahead
of Margaret Hoelzer.
“Just felt a little different
tonight, and obviously it did
for her, too,” McGregory said,
adding that she was looking
forward to swimming next to
Coughlin in the final Tuesday
night.
Coughlin, who has owned the
world record in the 100 since
2002, acknowledged that
McGregory was a worthy
challenger.
“She’s been coming on pretty
strong the last couple of
meets,” she said.
In the final, Coughlin said,
she will concentrate on her own
race.
“I like to be the person with
blinders on,” she said. “I know
a lot of other people feel
differently.”
It was impossible for
Coughlin not to react to
McGregory’s morning swim.
“It gave me motivation to
swim a little faster than I was
planning,” she said.
A Californian who came into
the race with 5 of the 10
fastest swims in the event,
Coughlin looks at the 100
backstroke as her baby. She was
not going to let somebody take
it from her without putting up a
fight.
“I didn’t really want her to
have it long,” Coughlin said.
Rarely is a world record
broken more than once in an
event in the same day.
It happened in the women’s
200-meter freestyle last year at
the world championships when
Federica Pellegrini of Italy set
the record and Laure Manaudou
lowered it by 0.95.
