Swimming: Heyns again breaks world record twice

THE SOUTH AFRICAN Penny Heyns twice broke the world record in the 100 metres breaststroke here on Sunday, just a day after twice breaking the world record in the 200m event.

She first broke the 100m record on Sunday morning with a preliminary- round swim of 1 min 6.99 sec, beating her previous record of 1:07.02 she set at the 1996 Olympics. In the afternoon, she broke the mark once again with a swim of 1:6.95 in the finals.

Heyns has a history of recording fast times in the mornings, but slower ones later in the day. So the second record came as a big surprise to her. "Never in my wildest dreams [did I think] I would do this," Heyns was quoted as saying by the Los Angeles Times.

Heyns won gold medals in the 100m and 200m breaststroke events at the Atlanta Games. Her records here are all the more incredible because she is currently still in mid-season training. "[The 100m] was the hardest race of all so far," Heyns said. "It is still weird and I'm all blown away."

Heyns also holds the world record in the 50m breaststroke.

On Saturday, Heyns set the 200m record with a swim of 2:24.69 in the preliminaries. In the finals, she lowered the new mark to 2:24.51. The previous record was 2:24.76, set by Australia's Rebecca Brown in 1994.