Kate Douglass tied a world record, while Katharine Berkoff and Van Mathias broke their first individual world records at USA Swimming’s World Short Course Championships Trials in Westmont, Illinois, on Thursday.

Douglass tied training partner Gretchen Walsh’s world record in the 50m freestyle. Berkoff broke the 50m backstroke record, and then Mathias swam the fastest short course 100m breaststroke in history.

They made the team for the World Short Course Championships in Beijing’s Water Cube from Dec. 1-6.

Short course meets are held in 25-meter pools rather than 50-meter pools (long course) used at the Olympics and other major meets in the summer.

Douglass won a duel Walsh in the 50m free by clocking 22.83 seconds, matching Walsh’s world record from the last short course worlds in 2024. She did so about 25 minutes after winning the 200m breaststroke, her 2024 Olympic gold medal event.

Douglass and Walsh, who both train at the University of Virginia, also traded the long course 50m free world record this past summer, with Douglass ultimately taking it down to 23.19.

Berkoff, a 25-year-old from Montana, broke her first individual world record, clocking 25.21 to lower countrywoman Regan Smith’s short course record from 2024 by two hundredths.

Berkoff earned an Olympic bronze medal in the 100m back in 2024 — 32 years to the day after her dad, Dave, won Olympic 100m back bronze.

She followed that by winning her first individual world title in 2025 in the 50m back and then her first major international title in the 100m back at the Pan Pacific Championships this past August.

The 50m back will be contested at the Olympics for the first time in 2028. Berkoff is the third-fastest woman in history in the long-course 50m back behind Italian Sara Curtis and Australian Kaylee McKeown.

Mathias made a bonkers comeback last year while working as the Indiana University swimming and diving team director of operations. He had placed 41st and 48th in two butterfly events at the Tokyo Olympic Trials.

He is now the American record holder in the 50m and 100m breast in long course and the freshly minted world record holder in the short course 100m breast.

He swam 55.14 seconds on Thursday, breaking the record of 55.28 set by Ilya Shymanovich of Belarus in 2021.

The other winners Thursday were Walsh (100m individual medley), Regan Smith (200m butterfly), Claire Weinstein (400m free), Caeleb Dressel (50m free), Ilya Kharun (100m fly), Gabriel Jett (200m back) and Luke Hobson (400m free).