New Delhi, June 29 -- ROME - Kate Douglass set the women's 50-meter freestyle world record on June 19 in Indianapolis and posted about it with the confidence of someone who expected it to last. Nine days later, her training partner erased it.

"That was, like, the best race I've ever executed. There you go, I guess you get a world record from that." Douglass, for her part, posted on Instagram within hours: "was fun while it lasted."

The exchange captures something about where women's sprint freestyle is right now. The record that Walsh broke was itself only nine days old. The record Douglass broke to set hers had belonged to Sweden's Sarah Sjostrom since the 2023 World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, where Sjostrom swam 23.61. In the ...