Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom reckons her 100 metres butterfly world record is on borrowed time ahead of the Rio Olympics because she believes she can go significantly faster.
“I think I can beat the world record, I have been feeling very good in the fly the whole season,” she told reporters at the European championships yesterday during an appearance for swimwear brand Arena. “I’m pretty sure I can go under, like, 55 if I do everything right, but it’s not easy to do everything perfect when you are in the final,” the 22-year-old added. “If I am in the shape I can be, I am sure I can swim very fast.”
The Swede set the record of 55.64 seconds on her way to gold at last year’s world championships in Kazan, Russia. She swam a 55.89 on Friday, for her third gold of the meet, despite not having fully tapered.That was still faster than anyone else this year, even if she did a 55.68 a few weeks earlier in Sweden, or ever.
The Olympic gold in the same London pool four years ago was won by American Dana Vollmer in a then-world record 55.98, beating the previous best set by Sjostrom in a now-banned non-textile body suit in 2009. “I feel so confident in the swimming and everything just goes by itself,” said Sjostrom. “So I just have to relax and if everything goes right up here I can do anything,” she added, tapping her head.”Everything is mental as well. I just have to put some things together. I have been working on my first 50 for a while, I know that my last 50 can be amazing,” she said.
Training with the Swedish men most of the time, she has plenty of competition to push her in practice. “The guys, some butterfly swimmers in the training are much faster than me,” she said.”So I have to swim behind the waves every day. I’m used to having someone who is much faster in practice than me and I think that’s very good.”
The Swede, who also holds the short-course world record of 54.61, was fourth in the 100m at the 2012 Games and is targeting her first Olympic medal at her third Games. She got sick shortly before London but now has a better plan for Rio, where she will swim three freestyle events as well as butterfly and relays.
“We didn’t think about putting the blackout period that some athletes are talking about before the Games, I didn’t have that (in 2012),” she said. “I was working all the way and then I got sick because I didn’t have time for recovery. Now my blackout period is already in. If we are doing media now, it’s because of the European championships. I don’t have any more sponsor things or photoshoots. I did miss a lot of training last time. Now I haven’t missed any sessions.”