Shaine Casas Breaks Ryan Lochte’s American Record in the 200 IM at 2024 Worlds

By Madeline Folsom on SwimSwam

2024 SHORT COURSE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

• December 10-15, 2024
• Duna Arena, Budapest, Hungary
• SCM (25m)
• Meet Central
• Roster Index
• SwimSwam Preview Index
• Pick’em
• Psych Sheets
• Live Results
• Prelims Live Recap: Day 1
• Finals Live Recap: Day 1

The men’s 200 IM might have been the first non-world record of the evening, but it wasn’t without excitement. American Shaine Casas won his first world title, breaking Ryan Lochte’s 12-year-old American Record by twelve-one-hundredths of a second.

Casas, who trains at Texas with Bob Bowman, was out in first and just got faster, winning the event by over a second in 1:49.51. Two months ago, he would have broken the World Record in the event, but today he has to settle for 2nd fastest ever, and fastest American.

Ryan Lochte has held the previous American Record since the 2012 Short Course Worlds in 1:49.63. This was also the World Championship Record until Casas’ swim tonight. His time was one of the oldest world-records on the books, until last month when Leon Marchand went 1:48.88 at the Singapore leg of the World Cup.

Split Comparison

Casas was out faster than Marchand and Lochte on the fly leg, but he was not able to match Marchand’s middle 100 speed.

The big difference maker between Casas and Lochte was that last 50, where Casas went fourteen-one-hundredths faster, allowing him to break the American and Championship record by twelve-one-hundredths.

His swim tonight marks only the 3rd time in history someone has been under 1:50, and the 2nd fastest swim ever.

Top 5 Performances All-Time

1. Leon Marchand, France – 1:48.88 (2024)
2. Shaine Casas, United States – 1:49.51 (2024)
3. Ryan Lochte, United States – 1:49.63 (2012)
4. Ryan Lochte, United States – 1:50.08 (2010)
5. Matthew Sates, South Africa – 1:50.15 (2022)

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