Haughey shatters 100m breaststroke time on way to double US Open gold

Siobhan Haughey has laid down another marker ahead of next year’s Paris Olympics, winning twice inside 20 minutes at the Toyota US Open.

The Hongkonger slashed more than two seconds off her personal best on the way to taking the 100-metre breaststroke gold, an event she rarely swims, moments after setting a championship record in the 200m freestyle.

Haughey’s time of one minute, 54.20 seconds took the new mark under 1:55 for the first time, bettering Katie Ledecky’s 1:55.47 from 2021 by some margin.

Ledecky finished second in 1:56.29 at Greensboro Aquatic Centre on Friday night, with Simone Manuel third in 1:57.37.

A quarter of an hour later the 26-year-old Haughey was back at it, this time seeing off the challenge of Tokyo Olympic gold medallist Lydia Jacoby to win the 100m breaststroke in 1:06.05, knocking a huge 2.33 seconds of her previous personal best.

Much like her 200 freestyle win, Haughey led the race from wire-to-wire and was fastest in the field on both 50s.

Jacoby finished 0.15 seconds back in 1:06.20. Kotryna Teterevkova was third in 1:06.96.

In the men’s events, seven-time Olympic gold medallist Caeleb Dressel’s push for Paris gained steam with his 100m butterfly victory in North Carolina.

Dressel, sixth at the turn, powered home to win in 51.31 sec, his first race win since the 2022 World Championships, where he cut short his campaign before stepping away from swimming for several months.

Dressel, who failed to qualify for the World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, earlier this year, said the victory just confirmed the progress he’d already felt in training.

“It’s not something I need right now,” he said of the victory. “Training’s been going great, so it’s a little cherry on top. It’s just fun to be back.”

With his eyes firmly on the US Olympic trials in June and the Paris Games, Dressel said he was in a “really good spot.”

“Throwing up some times that probably (are) a little quicker than I thought it would be at this point in the season,” said Dressel, who set the world record of 49.45 sec at the Tokyo Olympics but hadn’t gone faster than 51.66 since his return to competition.

His storming finish saw him touch one one-hundredth of a second ahead of Ilya Kharun of Canada with Josh Liendo third in 51.42.