Leanne Smith breaks three Para swimming world records in one day
Five-time Paralympic medalist Leanne Smith broke three of her own world records in one day to open the Para Swimming World Series meet in Indianapolis on Thursday.
Smith, a 36-year-old from Massachusetts, broke world records in the 50m, 100m and 200m freestyles in the S3 classification.
In the 100m free final, she lowered her world record from 1:27.62 (set at the 2022 World Championships) to 1:26.76.
En route, she also became the first woman to break 40 seconds in the S3 50m free, splitting 39.99. Smith previously held the world record of 40.03 from the Paris Paralympics.
In Thursday's 200m free final, she clocked 3:09.65 to smash her world record of 3:15.48 from 2022.
Smith said she took four months off from swimming after the Paris Paralympics, where she took gold in the 50m free (S4) and 100m free (S3).
'It's something I didn't expect (the world records), but switching up my training and taking a solid four months off from swimming was refreshing and much-needed,' she said, according to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. '(These records) are emotional for me, but they reinforce that you don't have to be doing what the person next to you is doing, and that working within your limits is OK and it's enough.'
Also Thursday, Katie Kubiak broke world records in the 150m individual medley and the 100m freestyle in the S4 classification. The New York University student is making her international competition debut at the World Series.
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Davies, an England amateur international, was to die in the Munich air crash in 1958 while covering Manchester United; he had seen McCracken play and he left a vibrant profile. Davies described McCracken as a 'setter of offside traps of unwonted slickness and cunning'. These were designed to force opponents 'to think — and that has never been a popular mission'. 'Crowds flocked to watch him, composed mainly of angry and prejudiced men, and few were there who had the patience to acknowledge the beauty of McCracken's technique in the abstract,' Davies wrote. Advertisement Davies partially understood the public antipathy toward McCracken — 'Who but a snake charmer would fall in love with a serpent?' — but his admiration was clear. It was shared on Tyneside. In a 1913 match report, the Sheffield Star referred to McCracken's display as 'one of those whole-hearted exhibitions that have made the rollicking son of Erin so popular at St James' Park'. Joannou makes the point that this appeal was and is unusual for a defender: 'He wasn't a goalscorer or a flamboyant midfielder. He was a full-back and very rarely are they the stars. But he's right up there.' McCracken called himself 'an overlapping wing-back before the term was invented', and Joannou says McCracken and his fellow Newcastle team-mates came to realise their need to perfect offside on a train journey back from a defeat at Notts County. 'Every club played the offside game and Notts County were a top-level side then,' Joannou says. 'Newcastle were caught offside all the time. This was 1907. On the train back from Nottingham to Tyneside, the club had what was called a 'council of war' — this was before managers — and the players themselves decided on how to play. After that drubbing, in offside terms, McCracken was one of the four or five players who were really scientific in their tactics. Over the next few weeks and seasons, they perfected the offside trap. 'They became the best in the land at it. As an individual, McCracken became the most hated man in football. 'There are lovely caricatures of him with his arm up, appealing for offside. But he ran into all sorts of arguments with other players and with referees, who didn't like it as they felt it was unsportsmanlike.' When football resumed after the First World War, so did McCracken, by then club captain. Newcastle finished eighth in the First Division in season 1919-20, but they had the best defensive record. McCracken was 37 by then and stayed at St James' for another three years. Then, in February 1923, a couple of days after his 40th birthday, second division Hull City offered him the post of manager on a five-year contract. Advertisement Hull were neither wealthy nor prestigious, but McCracken was there for eight years and took them to an FA Cup semi-final in 1930, lost on a replay to eventual winners Arsenal. In the quarter-finals, Hull had beaten Newcastle, Hughie Gallacher and all. The headline in Tyneside's Daily Chronicle was 'Newcastle In McCracken Trap'. The match report said: 'One of the most piquant features of the match was the frequency with which the visiting forwards were manoeuvred into offside positions — shades of William McCracken, now Hull's manager, who when at Newcastle, taught the rest of the football world how to play that game.' Distracted by the cup, Hull were relegated. But McCracken had made his mark. He had made another in the 1925-26 season. In the immediate aftermath of the IFAB Paris offside decision, as goals flew in everywhere — Newcastle conceded 75 that season, as opposed to 37 in McCracken's last in 1922-23 — there was one club bucking the trend. The club was Hull City. They began 1925-26 with a 0-0 draw against Derby County (who apologised for arriving late, having missed a train connection at Selby). Hull followed that with a 2-0 win at Southampton, then a 1-0 win at Bradford City. There were then 4-0 and 3-0 victories and, after five games in football's new world, a world created by the likes of McCracken, of the 92 clubs in the top four divisions, only Hull City had not conceded a goal. The local paper, the Hull Daily Mail, saluted 'the astute manager' and his players' 'intelligent interpretation' of the new offside clause. Davies was rather more lyrical: 'Chilly doubts again assailed observers. Not McCracken again, surely! But facts were facts and soon the alarming rumour spread, later confirmed by eye-witnesses, that the enterprising coach, critic and tactical adviser to Hull City Football Club was none other than our old friend the Irish Mephistopheles, William McCracken… the game's arch-obstructionist.' McCracken moved on from Hull to manage Gateshead, Millwall and Aldershot before returning to Newcastle United as scout, often in Ireland. He would begin reports, 'Here is the latest bulletin from the land of spuds and buttermilk.' He recommended a 17-year-old George Eastham, who was playing in the Irish League. Newcastle bought him and Eastham, too, would shape the entire sport via his contract dispute and victory. Advertisement Living in south London, at 75, McCracken then started scouting for Watford. He recommended they sign Pat Jennings from Newry Town, which they did for (apparently) £10. McCracken filed his last scouting report to Watford in 1971, from a reserve team game between Crystal Palace and Leicester City. He was 88. Visiting his son in Hull, he was 95 when he passed away in January 1979, quite a distance from Distillery and Paris 1925. Some remembered all of that, though, the Sunday Express announcing: 'Bill McCracken, the famous old Irish international full-back of Newcastle United, whose offside tactics led to a change in the laws of the game in 1925, has died.' McCracken died as he lived: onside.
