McFarlane Leads Assault on Swimming Records

Canada’s Tracey McFarlane established the U.S. Open and NCAA record for the 100-yard breaststroke and four American records were broken Friday at the national women’s swimming and diving championships.

The American records went to Texas junior Betsy Mitchell in the 100-yard backstroke, California’s Mary T. Meagher in the 100-yard butterfly, the Texas 200-yard freestyle relay team and the Stanford 400-yard medley relay team.

Texas, seeking its fourth straight team title, had 438 points to 396.5 for Stanford, 218 for third-place Florida and 216 for California. The meet is scheduled to conclude Saturday at the Indiana University Natatorium.

Mitchell won the 100 backstroke in 54.18 seconds in the finals. Her afternoon qualifying time of 53.98 seconds set the American record. The mark was 54.81, by Sue Walsh of North Carolina in 1983.

McFarlane, also of Texas, won the 100 breaststroke in 1:00.68, surpassing the U.S. open mark of 1:01.13 set by Tracy Caulkins in 1981. McFarlane also improved the NCAA mark of 1:01.28, which she had set in Friday’s preliminary heats.

Meagher set the U.S. record in the 100 butterfly in 52.42 seconds. Texas established another U.S. record by winning the 200-yard medley relay in 1:31.01, cutting .11 of a second off Stanford’s 1981 mark. Jeanne Doolan, Courtney Madsen, Carrie Steinseifer and Ann Drolsom earned the victory for Texas. The Longhorns were fourth 50 yards into the race, but recovered after a strong performance by Madsen pulled Texas in contention and Steinseifer took the lead for good.