Olympic Relay Champion Matt Richards Twice Lowers British 100 Free SC Record In One Day; Goes 45.85

Olympic relay champion Matt Richards lowered the British 100 free short-course record he set earlier in the day by going 45.85 in the final at the Swim England National Winter Championships in Sheffield.

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Richards, who swam the third leg as Britain won the 4×200 in Tokyo, sliced 0.03 from Ben Proud‘s 2015 mark of 45.97 to set a national record of 45.94 in the morning prelims.

The 19-year-old returned in the evening for the final, splitting 21.98/23.87 to cut a further 0.09secs and rewrite the record books once more.

Richards, who moved to Millfield from Bath Performance Centre earlier this year, set a Welsh 50 free record of 21.11 on Friday.

It propelled him to second in the all-time British rankings, leapfrogging Mark Foster whose time of 21.13 in January 2001 was then a world record.

Proud holds the top-20 times in domestic waters topped by his national record of 20.40 set at the ISL final in Eindhoven in December 2021.