American Gretchen Walsh continued her cash flow on Saturday night at the 2025 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup in Carmel with a $10,000 bonus for breaking her own world record in the 50m butterfly. Walsh took two tenths off her own world mark from last year’s World Short Course Championships, one of 11 records she set in the Hungarian capital last year. Walsh, age 22, swam 23.72 to just miss her own 23.71 from yesterday’s 50m freestyle heats.

“I was feeling really strong in the water and powerful, and I felt fast this morning too, but there was just a little something different about my strokes here tonight, maybe less gliding, and I just knew that the timing was kind of perfect,” Walsh said.

Walsh has been on a tear since winning silver at last year’s Olympics in the 100m butterfly. This is her 13th world record in the last 12 months in short course and long course meters, and with two more weeks in this World Cup, there could be more records to come.

“I think there's a lot of thought that goes into a swim like that where you really do want to perfect every detail and make every part of it exactly how you need to execute it to go your best time,” Walsh said. “And so for me, I felt confident in doing my normal routine, and I just made sure that I was really putting a lot of power and effort into every single stroke. There's just not many in a race like that.”

The Americans showed out well in their home nation in front of the Indiana fans as two of the mainstays on the national team scored big time confidence boosting wins over the reigning Olympic champions in their respective events.

“I really heard (the crowd) last night during my 100 IM,” Walsh said. “I can hear a lot of people, so now I kind of listen for it to get me amped up, and I think everyone's been so kind here and very supportive of me, so I can definitely hear my cheerleaders in the crowd.”

25-year-old Shaine Casas had one of the most impressive swims on the day in winning the 200m IM over Olympic and World champ Leon Marchand as the American took his first ever head-to-head win over the world record holder.

“I was actually thinking that the fear of losing is so daunting, especially in a sport where you don't get redemption in one game or even in the next week, it's like months or even years,” Casas said, who was ninth at the 2024 Olympics despite coming in as a medal favorite. “You kind of just got to wait for your turn. Having that happen to me, I've kind of learned how to deal with it, process it, and use it as a fire. And I think, maybe during the years where it wasn't at the top or swimming super well, that's definitely fueled me and given me guidance throughout this time that I am doing well again.”

Casas held his own on the breaststroke and out-kicked Marchand on the freestyle, winning with the second fastest time ever at 1:49.43 with Marchand second at 1:49.73. Casas inched closer to Marchand’s world record of 1:48.88 set last year.

“I think a lot of that has to do with Leon being next to me,” Casas said. “I said (to myself) ‘let's just go for it.’ And that was the strategy. So now just kind of using that, I mean, see what we can do, even when he's not here, just keep pushing myself and see how far I can go.”

Similarly, 23-year-old Regan Smith got her first head-to-head win over Kaylee McKeown since 2019, taking down the two-time reigning Olympic champ on home soil 54.92 - 55.05. Smith and McKeown have transformed the backstroke events since they were juniors in 2017, as they’ve won every single Olympic and World title since 2021, and have traded the world records back and forth since 2019. But in that span it’s always been McKeown on top over Smith. Finally, on Saturday night, Smith got a head to head win.

“With LA on the very distant horizon, it feels good to finally do it head to head,” Smith said. “I think it was a bit of a mental thing. Hopefully, I can keep snowballing that, but I know she's a beast so we'll just keep going back and forth.”

Australia did celebrate a win on Saturday from Olympic and World champion Mollie O’Callaghan in the 200m freestyle at 1:50.77, breaking the Oceania record to move up to third all-time. O’Callaghan will have two more chances over the next two weeks to get Siobhan Haughey’s 1:50.31 world record as O’Callaghan doesn’t have a lot of experience racing this event in short course meters.

“I feel like the short course event is a different race than long course,” O’Callaghan said. “I don't have the training under me to do short course, so it's a nice little surprise to pop a 1:50.77, especially as this is probably my third 200m free short course ever. So I'm pretty happy with it.”

The American fans celebrated additional wins from Jack Alexy in the 100m freestyle and Kate Douglass in the 100m breaststroke.

Alexy’s 45.32 in the 100m freestyle was not far off his 45.05 American record as he will look to close in on that over the next two weeks as well as Kyle Chalmers’s 44.84 world record from 2021. Alexy has taken on the responsibility as the best American sprinter, passed down to him from Caeleb Dressel as Alexy finished 1-2 with his right hand man Chris Guiliano (46.00).

“I was sitting by myself in the ready room and I was thinking of the goal time in mind; just thinking of some details and looking at the crowd getting a little nervous,” Alexy said. “I think it's just kind of a cool experience and a privilege to feel that pressure, and feel these nerves. And I think it's good for practice for now.

“Now if we can just get more races the end from now until the summer, and again in 2027 and 2028. Not only myself, but Team USA is in really good hands in the leadup to the Los Angeles Olympics.”

Douglass collected her second win of the meet with a 1:02.90 in the 100m breaststroke. After swimming the third fastest 200m breaststroke ever last night, Douglass moved up to sixth all-time in the 100m on Saturday, as she is closing in on Lilly King’s 1:02.50 American record and the shared world record of 1:02.36 by Alia Atkinson and Ruta Meilutyte.

“I feel like I'm really trying to build off of everything I did to prepare for worlds last summer and see what I can do in the short course pool,” Douglass said. “It’s definitely been a little difficult. We definitely did a few weeks of aerobic training, which is not my favorite. We're coming to this meet feeling a little bit broken down, and not feeling like we're at our best when it comes to our training cycle. We all think that we're going to kind of improve a little bit as we go throughout these weeks and maybe get a little bit more rest than we've had.”

This is a new event for Douglass, who won silver at this summer’s World Championships as she also had one of the fastest relay splits ever on the last night of those championships. Perhaps the individual world record is next for her.

“This morning was the first time I raced in the 100m breaststroke in short course,” Douglass said. “I kind of went in with a stroke count plan and I was kind of all over the place. So tonight, I kind of knew what stroke count to switch it up to and to try to hit, and I did that, and I went faster.

“I feel like I've always struggled with sprint breaststroke. It's not something I really focused on in college just because I was never really the best at it. I feel like these last few years, I've really been trying to focus on it, especially for long course racing. I was just excited to swim it this weekend.”

Douglass currently leads the overall World Cup points standings over O’Callaghan.

Hungary’s Hubert Kos won his second race of the weekend, taking the 50m backstroke at 22.65, just off his own Hungarian record of 22.64. Kos is going to be one of the favourites for the overall World Cup title as he is currently tied with Casas at the moment, two days into the nine-day tour.

Canada’s Ilya Kharun sits in third overall in the points standings as he won the 200m butterfly in the last race of the night at 1:50.65, collecting his second win of the weekend after winning the 100m last night.

South Africa’s Chris Smith won the 50m breaststroke at 25.75 over Adam Peaty in his first finals swim at an international meet since the 2024 Paris Olympics. Peaty finished sixth at 26.43 at age 30.

Great Britain’s Abbie Wood also won the 400m IM at 4:27.14, while Australia’s Sam Short won the 1500m freestyle at 14:30.00.

The World Aquatics Swimming World Cup will continue tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. local time with finals following at 6:00 p.m.

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Relive the Action

●      Carmel Day One: Regan Smith, Gretchen Walsh break World Cup records to open Swimming World Cup in Carmel

Contributing: Greg Eggert