On Halloween night in Singapore, Kate Douglass shattered her World Record by stopping the clock at 2:12.75 in the 25m pool inside the OCBC Aquatic Centre. Douglass took another 1.44 seconds from her World Record performance last week at the 2024 Swimming World Cup stop in Incheon (KOR).

In Singapore, the 26-year-old New York native was followed by Neutral Independent Athlete Alina Zmushka (2:18:79) and Australia’s Tara Kinder (2:19.08), who finished second and third, respectively.

Image Source: Kate Douglass celebrates winning the triple crown on the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup 2024 during the final series event stop in Singapore (Yong Teck Lim/Getty Images)

Before Douglass rewrote the record books over the past eight days, the women’s 200m breaststroke World Record had been held by fellow American Rebecca Soni, who set a time of 2:14.57 in 2009 during the “supersuit” era of swimming. Soni’s record stood for 5,424 days.  

Douglass isn’t the only athlete setting new records during this year’s World Cup. Fellow American Regan Smith broke the women’s 100m backstroke short-course World Record with a time of 54.41, and Switzerland’s Noe Ponti claimed the World Record in the men’s 50m butterfly, finishing in 21.67. Both records fell during the Shanghai leg of the Swimming World Cup.

“I just kind of came in with a mission tonight,” Douglass said during a post-race interview. 

“I definitely don't think I expected 2:12, but I did kind of have the feeling that I had this kind of race in me after last weekend,” Douglass added. “I feel like if I actually came into the race expecting to break the World Record, then maybe I could surprise myself there. And I did.”

The final two days of the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup 2024 season continue in Singapore of Friday and Saturday (1-2 November), before the international short course calendar turns to the 2024 World Aquatics Swimming Championships (25m) in Budapest, Hungary from 10-15 December.