Sara Curtis Blasts 26.63 50 Again, Smashing McKeown’s World Record of 26.86 at Euro Champs

2026 European Swimming Championships

Women’s 50 Backstroke — Semi-Final

• World Record: 26.86, Kaylee McKeown (AUS) – 2023
• European Record: 27.07, Sara Curtis (ITA) – 2026
• Championship Record: 27.19, Kathleen Dawson (GBR) – 2021
• 2025 World Champion: Katharine Berkoff (USA), 27.08
• 2024 European Champion: Danielle Hill (IRL), 27.73

Top 8 Qualifiers

1. Sara Curtis (ITA) — 26.63 **NEW WORLD RECORD
2. Alina Gaifutdinova (NAB) — 26.91
3. Mary-Ambre Moluh (FRA) — 27.25
4. Tessa Giele (NED) — 27.30
5. Marrit Steenbergen (NED) — 27.31
6. Analia Pigree (FRA) — 27.34
7. Lauren Cox (GBR) — 27.39
8. Danielle Hill (IRL) — 27.85

The duopoly in ladies’s backstroke has been damaged, and shock, shock, it’s by a University of Virginia Swimmer. In the semifinal of the ladies’s 50 backstroke on the European Championships, Italy’s Sara Curtis unleashed a fury of velocity, blasting a brand new World Record in 26.63, the quickest efficiency in historical past by greater than two-tenths of a seconds, destroying Australian Kaylee McKeown‘s three-year-old World Record of 26.86, marking the primary world document in a backstroke occasion from an athlete not named Regan Smith or Kaylee McKeown for the primary time since 2018.

Curtis got here into this meet with a lifetime greatest exterior of the 26-second barrier, getting into this meet with a 27.07 from the Sette Colli meet in late June. That time would show to imply completely nothing, as she completed practically three tenths of a second quicker than anyone else within the semifinal.

The final time that we noticed a world document exterior of both Smith or McKeown was on the Asian Games in 2018, when Liu Xiang clocked 26.98 on this occasion.

With this swim, she turns into the 4th girl in historical past to crack the 27-second barrier, and the 2nd of the day.

Top Performers All-Time Women’s 50 Backstroke LCM:

1. Sara Curtis (ITA) – 26.63 (2026)
2. Kaylee McKeown (AUS) – 26.86 (2023)
3. Alina Gaifutdinova (RUS) – 26.91 (2026)
4. Katharine Berkoff (USA) – 26.97 (2025)
5. Liu Xiang (CHN) – 26.98 (2018)

Curtis stole the present within the semifinals, delivering what has to this point been the swim of the meet. Had it not been for Curtis, Alina Gaifutdinova, representing the Neutral Athletes group at these championships, touched within the Third-fastest time in historical past in 26.91, solely 5 one-hundredths off the now-former world document from McKeown.