American Claire Curzan became the third swimmer to sweep the 50m, 100m and 200m titles in a single stroke at one world championships, completing her backstroke set Saturday in Doha.
Curzan, a University of Virginia sophomore, won the 200m back in 2 minutes, 5.77 seconds, prevailing by 1.26 seconds over Australian Jaclyn Barclay.
No swimmer had swept the 50m, 100m and 200m of a single stroke at a worlds until last July when China’s Qin Haiyang did so in the men’s breaststroke and Australian Kaylee McKeown did so in the women’s backstroke.
Neither Qin nor McKeown competed at these worlds, the first held in an Olympic year, as many stars prioritized staying home to train. Also absent were all three U.S. female backstrokers from last July’s worlds — Regan Smith, Katharine Berkoff and Rhyan White.
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Curzan, 19, will hope to take this momentum to June’s Olympic Trials, where she will bid to make a second Olympic team.
She was runner-up in the 100m butterfly at the Tokyo trials at age 16, then placed 10th at the Olympics.
Curzan earned five medals at the 2022 Worlds and did not make the team for the 2023 Worlds after dealing with illness before last year’s nationals.
Also Saturday, Vladylsav Bukhov won the men’s 50m freestyle to become the first Ukrainian to take swimming worlds gold since 2007.
Bukhov, 21, clocked 21.44 seconds to edge 2023 World champ Cameron McEvoy of Australia by one hundredth.
“We train while Russian rockets are flying round the swimming pool,” Bukhov said, according to Agence France-Presse. “You never know if you stay alive or not. It’s difficult. For all Ukrainians.”
Swede Sarah Sjöström won the women’s 50m fly (which is not an Olympic event) for her record-extending 22nd career individual world medal.
Worlds finish Sunday with finals live on Peacock at 11 a.m. ET.
