INDIANAPOLIS — No one was beating Regan Smith in her signature event.
Bouncing back from a close-but-no-Olympics call in her first race, Smith set a world record in the women’s 100-meter backstroke at the U.S. swimming trials Tuesday night.
Smith touched in 57.13 seconds, easily beating the mark of 57.33 set a year ago by Australia’s Kaylee McKeown.
“That was part of the plan,” said Smith, who is heading to the Olympics for the second time. “I’m so happy.”
Smith bounced back emphatically after getting edged for a spot on the U.S. team in the 100 butterfly, where she finished third behind Gretchen Walsh and Torri Huske.
Flipping to her back, Smith set the second world record of the trials, following Walsh’s mark in the semifinals of the 100 fly.
Smith won a bronze medal in the 100 backstroke at the Tokyo Olympics. She’s now established herself as the favorite for gold in Paris.
Katharine Berkoff claimed the second expected Olympic spot for the U.S. with a time of 57.91.
In the night’s other final, Bobby Finke earned the right to defend the 800 freestyle gold he won in Tokyo with a time of 7 minutes, 44.22 seconds.
Finke had to work hard to get to the wall ahead of 18-year-old Indiana phenom Luke Whitlock, who set a national age-group record at 7:45.19 and will likely head to his first Olympics with the second U.S. spot.
No one else was within 4 seconds of the top two.
Whitlock splashed the water emphatically after going virtually stroke-for-stroke with the reigning Olympic champion.
Two of America’s biggest swimming stars, Caeleb Dressel and Simone Manuel, had impressive debuts at the trials, though there’s still work to do to make it back to the Olympics.
Dressel was the third-fastest qualifier in the preliminaries and semifinals of the men’s 100 freestyle, both times finishing behind Jack Alexy and Chris Guiliano. The tattooed Floridian will have to beat at least one of them in the final Wednesday night to earn a chance to defend his Olympic title in that event.
Manuel was the fastest qualifier in the women’s 100 free preliminaries and took the second spot behind Huske in the semifinals.
Dressel and Manuel are both coming back from long layoffs that cast doubts over whether they’d be able to qualify for Paris.
The winner of five gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics, Dressel walked away in the midst of the 2022 world championships, later revealing he needed an extended break to rekindle his love for the sport.
Manuel, the first Black female swimmer to capture an individual gold medal, was diagnosed with overtraining syndrome ahead of the previous Olympics. She barely managed to qualify for the U.S. team, then shut down all physical activity under a doctor’s care to allow her body to recover.