Claire Curzan broke the women's 100m backstroke short-course world record on Friday night, touching in 53.92 at the 2026 U.S. Short Course World Championship Trials. She became the first woman to swim the event under 54 seconds.
First under 54, and she did it from behind
The final came in the Day 3 evening session at the FMC Natatorium in Westmont, Illinois. Curzan pushed out about half a body length ahead at the start and widened the gap off all three turns, leaving Smith behind. The field behind her fell away, with Isabelle Stadden fourth in 56.33.
The race was not decided early. At the 50m mark Curzan turned in 26.36, slower than Regan Smith's 26.25 from her 2024 record swim. The margin came on the second length, where Curzan split 27.56 and ran faster than both of Smith's past record swims.
She beat the former mark of 54.02 by 0.10 seconds. Katharine Berkoff took second in 54.72, and Smith, the top seed and previous record holder, finished third in 54.82. Berkoff had set the 50m back world record one day earlier.
A first individual record after years of near misses
This was Curzan's first individual world record. Her previous best in the event stood at 54.94, swum only two weeks earlier at Virginia's SCM World Prep meet. In long-course racing she had ranked sixth in the world over the distance in 2026.
Her 55.74 in 2022 earned a tie for bronze with Canada's Ingrid Wilm at the short-course Worlds, and she swept the backstroke events at the 2024 long-course World Championships. She already holds the long-course 50m freestyle and short-course 50m butterfly records, and this swim gives Virginia's program 19 current world records.
The meet ran thick with fast swimming, as Jack Alexy broke the men's 100m freestyle world record the same Friday. The top two finishers earned places on the U.S. team for the World Short Course Championships in Beijing's Water Cube, held December 1–6. Curzan and Berkoff qualified, and Curzan arrives there as the woman who redrew the record.
