By Sam Blacker on SwimSwam
Cam McEvoy set a new Oceanian and World Cup record in the short course 50 free in Tashkent last week clocking 20.13 to become the second-fastest man in history. That came one week after he had initially set both records with a 20.22 at the first stop in Baku, which had hacked more than half a second off his previous best of 20.75.
But what was most impressive was his opening 25 meters. He turned in 9.45 seconds en route to that 2013, which appears to be the fastest opening 25 in history by a full tenth of a second.
The previous best, swum by Jordan Crooks when he set his world record of 19.90 in 2024, was a 9.55. Ben Proud flipped in 9.64 when he set the European record of 20.18 at the 2023 European Championships one year before that.
While 25 meter splits were not the norm before then, no one other than McEvoy and Crooks appears to have been out under 9.60 seconds. Florent Manaudou hit the wall in 9.6-low when setting a world record of 20.24 in the 50 free in 2014, while Caeleb Dressel was a 9.6-high when breaking that mark with a 20.16 at the 2020 ISL Grand Final.
The aforementioned quartet are some of the best starters and underwater kickers in history. McEvoy, who, while strong in those areas, is at his best on top of the water, was a full percentage point faster than Crooks and two points ahead of Proud on that first length.
So far this fall, McEvoy had already matched Crooks’ opening 25m with a 9.55 in Baku, before closing in 10.67 to hold off Egor Kornev. The Russian swimmer had notched a 9.66 opening length himself, one of the fastest in history.
Only one other swimmer on this World Cup tour has cracked 10 seconds on the opening length: Isaac Cooper with a 9.95 in the heats in Tashkent. That is a full half second slower than McEvoy, correlating to over a meter of distance (1.26m to be more precise).
Sub-10 second opening 25s are still relatively uncommon. Only five swimmers in the final at the European Championships last December cracked the barrier, and none of them were faster than 9.92 seconds. The fastest 25m split on the World Cup tour last year was a 9.87 from Josh Liendo, one of only five sub-10 splits spread across four swimmers.
Sub-9.9 splits are even rarer. Only ten swimmers have registered one in the last four years, and only half of those have cracked 9.80 seconds.
Men’s SCM 50m Freestyle, Sub-9.9 Second Opening Splits By Performer, (2022-2026)
Cam McEvoy (AUS) – 9.45 Jordan Crooks (CAY) – 9.55 Ben Proud (GBR) – 9.64 Egor Kornev (RUS) – 9.66 Nyls Korstanje (NED) – 9.78 Florent Manaudou (FRA) – 9.82 Jack Alexy (USA)/Gui Caribe (BRA)/Szebastian Szabo (HUN)/Josh Liendo (CAN) – 9.87To try to visualise the difference between these ten, imagine the below graph shows the swimmers between the flags as McEvoy hits the wall. It is not a perfect representation, given that we are assuming a constant pace across the length and are not taking into account the complexities around the turn, but does help to illustrate just how exceptional his opener was last week.
While McEvoy rockets out to halfway, he is still more than two tenths off Jordan Crooks‘ world record time in the 50 free. Crooks did the most damage in his swim off the turn, with the 25m-40m section of his world record-setting swim being quite possibly the finest underwater in history – the main competitor there is the underwater from his other world record-setting swim.
He was 10.35 on the second length when he clocked that 19.90 world record, more than three tenths faster than the 10.68 McEvoy clocked last week. Crooks had been even faster in the heats at the 2024 World Championships with a 10.30 second 25m.
The first 25m is exactly where we should expect McEvoy to be strongest in the short course 50 free. He has a fantastic start, a fantastic breakout, and more over-the-water speed than anyone in the world right now, if not in history. He doesn’t hold that speed off the turn as well as swimmers like Crooks (10.30), Proud (10.54), Dressel (~10.5), or even Josh Liendo (10.44) can, but to halfway he looks imperious.
What makes McEvoy’s 9.45 mark even more impressive is that over the last four years, only one swimmer has surpassed it off a flying start. Maxime Grousset, who clocked the first sub-20 second split since Amaury Leveaux and Fred Bousquet in 2008 at last December’s European Championships, was out in 9.30 seconds, just 0.15 seconds faster than McEvoy was from a flat start last week.
Two other swimmers have matched McEvoy’s 9.45 in Heiko Gigler (2025) and Nyls Korstanje (2024), with Thom de Boer also getting under 9.50 seconds with a 9.48 in 2022.
Grousset, who split 19.96, had a 0.04 second reaction time. McEvoy was over half a second slower at 0.58 seconds. What that means is that McEvoy was nearly four tenths faster over the opening 25m once he had left the block – likely nearer half a second considering the additional momentum that comes with a flying start.
McEvoy clocked 9.21 seconds in a 25m race back in July in Brisbane, three weeks before claiming Commonwealth Games gold in Glasgow in a time of 20.97. He won’t open his account in Astana this week with the 50 free, as the schedule switches it with the 100 free so that that event comes on the Thursday instead, but there is clearly room for him to open his 50 even faster as he seeks just the second sub-20 swim in history.
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