Above shot captured of Sarah Sjostrom in her natural habitat, courtesy of Jennie Johnasson.
Thanks to Northern European correspondent Chris DeSantis for contributing to this report.

Sarah Sjostrom is slowly (more like with a vengance) becoming one of the most well-rounded swimmers in the world. Today, at the Swedish Short Course Junior National Championships, she took down the Short Course National Record in the women’s 200 IM with a 2:08.17.

That swim took down the old mark held by USC swimmer Stina Gardell at the 2009 World Cup, in a rubber-suit.

This time for Sjostrom lops over a second off of her pervious career-best and moves her into the all-time top 30 (and logically speaking, she was unlikely rested for this meet).

The only lacking leg in this swim was the breaststroke, which was just ok, but aside from that she looked outstanding throughout the four strokes. Her splits:

27.31 – 32.45 – 38.90 – 29.51

At still only 18 years old (remember, this is a Junior National Championship meet), Sjostrom is still searching to expand her event horizons beyond the 100 fly that she’s so famous for after breaking the World Record at only 15. Though that 100 fly record has stood since then, that doesn’t mean that she’s not still making huge leaps forward. In the last three months alone she’s set personal-bests in 9 different events. That includes her 53.0 in the 100 free from Eindhoven in December.

Sjostrom would come back about 20 minutes later and take the 50 breaststroke in 31.54. That’s her weak stroke, but she’s been swimming it fairly frequently (she was 4th at Senior Nationals in this 50) which has to lead one to believe that a 200 IM is in her future in London or Rio (despite having never been better than 2:16 long course).

She also split a 51.76 on the 3rd leg of Sodertorns bronze-medal winning 400 free relay. That’s her best-ever short course time, either rolling or flat-start.

Live video for the meet available here.

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