AILSA CHANG, HOST:
OK. American swimmer Gretchen Walsh just had a huge weekend in the pool.
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UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER #1: It's unbelievable.
UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER #2: It really is. We've never seen dominance like this at any level. She's making it look like a high school meet, a world record threat every time she jumps in the water.
CHANG: Walsh won that event - the 50 meter freestyle, as called on NBC Sports - plus six more gold medals at the 2024 World Short Course Championships in Budapest, and she broke 11 world records. That performance means that she has broken the most world records ever broken at a single swim meet. Braden Keith is the editor-in-chief and cofounder of swimswam.com. Try saying that fast a hundred times. And he joins us now. Welcome. Welcome.
BRADEN KEITH: Good to talk to you.
CHANG: Good talking to you. OK. Holy cow - 11 world records by one person. Amazing. And I understand that by doing this, Walsh is now ahead of legendary swimmers like Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps, right? Like, as someone who covers swimming, just how huge is this?
KEITH: It's a pretty big deal. Anytime you're evoking Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz and Katie Ledecky and all of these legendary names that transcend the world of swimming...
CHANG: Yeah.
KEITH: ...You're talking big achievements. There is a little bit of context. This is the Short Course World Championships, which means it's in a 25-meter pool. The Long Course World Championships, which is in a 50-meter pool, which will be held next summer, is more highly attended, more prize money, sort of more watched.
CHANG: OK.
KEITH: So it's not the same, but it's still a pretty big deal.
CHANG: OK. Well, tell me more about Gretchen Walsh because I don't know very much about her. Like, when did she first start rising in this sport?
KEITH: So her older sister, Alex, actually got the attention first. They were both on the U.S. Olympic team last summer, and Gretchen kind of followed in Alex's footsteps. They're from Nashville - one of the fastest high school swimmers ever, moved on to college with a really good college team at the University of Virginia, was good her first couple years, but there were some questions about - she had kind of an up and down couple of seasons. Was she going to make it to the Olympic level? Was she good enough in that long course pool that I talked about to make it there? And she really answered those questions last summer at the U.S. Olympic trials, which was held in a football stadium, so that was pretty cool.
CHANG: (Laughter).
KEITH: And she broke a world record in the 100 fly in long course, which is the Olympic pool distance.
CHANG: Well, wait. Let's talk more about that because I have heard that Walsh has been called a bathtub swimmer, which is a new phrase for me. I mean, it's a jab, right? It means that she's...
KEITH: Yeah.
CHANG: ...Only known for being good at short distances when there are lots and lots of walls. And, yeah, Budapest shows that she's awesome at short distances, but what is she like at longer distances? Tell us more about that record.
KEITH: Well, so the difference is whether you're better underwater swimming or overwater swimming.
CHANG: Wow.
KEITH: In a short course pool, there are more turns, which means you spend more time underwater.
CHANG: Ah, yeah.
KEITH: When you get somebody who's really good at both, that's when you get Michael Phelps, for example.
CHANG: Yeah.
KEITH: And so she's really good at underwater swimming, but she's really developed her overwater swimming. And so these Short Course World Championships are more overwater swimming than American collegiate swimming, for example, where it's a 25-yard pool, so it's even less overwater swimming. So this is an evolution for her for sure. She still doesn't have an individual Olympic gold medal. She's also only 21, so she's got plenty of time.
CHANG: Plenty of time, plenty of lane. That is Braden Keith, editor-in-chief at swimswam.com. Thank you so much, Braden.
KEITH: Yeah. Thanks, Ailsa.
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