Gretchen Walsh clinched the first individual long course swimming world title of her career after storming to women’s 100m butterfly gold at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships on Monday, 28 July.
The 22-year-old American walked away with a remarkable seven golds at last year’s short course world championships in Budapest, and the two-time Olympic champion is off to a flier in Singapore.
Walsh, who won 4×100m medley gold at 2023 Fukuoka, raced to victory in 54.73 seconds, more than a second clear of Belgium’s promising 20-year-old Roos Vanotterdijk, who was competing in her first final.
Alexandria Perkins took home the bronze, but this was a final that firmly belonged to Walsh, whose championship-record swim was also the second-fastest 100m butterfly time in history.
Walsh broke the world record twice herself in Fort Lauderdale back in May, with this victory underlining her emergence as the dominant force in the 100m butterfly a year after winning silver at Paris 2024.
“I’m so happy. To be under 55 again means everything,” Walsh said afterwards. “It was not easy and I’m just really proud of myself for that time, and giving myself grace throughout this whole process.”
Walsh is among the Team USA swimmers battling a stomach illness, making her victory all the more remarkable given she withdrew from the 4x100m freestyle relay less than 24 hours ago.
“It took a lot of guts,” she added. “I just wanted to go out here and do it for my team, represent the flag. That race, it came out of somewhere, I don’t know what. I’m really, really happy.”
Walsh is set to race in three more individual events – 100m freestyle, 50m freestyle and 50m butterfly – later this week, with her full relay schedule yet to be finalised.
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