Gretchen Walsh, American competitive swimmer born in Tennessee in 2003, has over a dozen of gold medals on Swimming Championships, as well as two golds and two silvers at the Paris Olympics, and has broken over a dozen world records... eleven of those in a single championship.
It was during the 2024 World Aquatics Swimming Championships (25 m) in Budapest, a competition in a 25-meter pool (shorter than the usual 50 meters used in the Olympics). The 21-year-old has broken 11 world records, 9 individual, in the six-day championship.
It is believed that this is the most amount of world records ever broken in a single competition in the history of competitive swimming, with the previous individual record being held by Mark Spitz in the Munich 1972 Olympic Games (seven records) and, in the World Championships, Michael Phelps, breaking five world records in Barcelona 2003.
Beyond the "anecdote" of who broke more world record in a single run, Walsh has broken records in 50m and 100m freestyle, 50m and 100m butterfly, 100m individual medley, and 4x100m freestyle and medley relay, as reported by NBC.
However, she was not the only one to break records. Summer McIntosh also contributed to the record breaking 30 world records of the championship. McIntosh, Canadian swimmer, only 18 year-old, has been chosen by World Aquatics as the best female swimmer of the world in 2024, winner of three gold medals in Paris.