Four-time Olympic champion Leon Marchand set an incredible world record in the men's 200-meter medley at the World Swimming Championships in Singapore, BTA reported.
The Frenchman took nearly a second and a half off the old best and recorded a time of 1:52.69 seconds. He did this in the semifinals.
In the second semifinal series, Marchand was second after the first 50 meters of butterfly, trailing only American Shane Casas. However, after the turn, he took the leading position and left no doubt about his superiority until the end. At one point, the Frenchman was more than a body length ahead of the old world record, which was 1:54.00 minutes by American Ryan Lochte from 2011, but at the end of the distance he clearly saved his strength for the upcoming final.
Marchand's achievement was the first world record since the beginning of the world championships.
In the 800-meter freestyle, Tunisian Ahmed Djawadi won the gold medal.
The 20-year-old Djawadi won his first gold in an Olympic-sized pool with a time of 7:36.88 minutes - the third best of all time in this discipline. He also "inherited" his compatriot Ahmed Hafnaoui, who won gold at the previous world championship in 2023 in Fukuoka, but is currently serving a doping ban.
Second and third place were taken by Germans Sven Schwarz with 7:39.96 minutes and Lukas Mertens with 7:40.19 minutes.
The championships record of 3:37.97 minutes was set by Neutral individual athletes from Russia in the mixed relay of 4x100 meters combined swimming. Miron Lifintsev and Kirill Prigoda in the first two positions moved the Russian team under the world record, but although they were unable to keep up the pace, Daria Klepikova and Daria Trofimova managed to hold on to the first position for the Russians.
The silver medal with 3:39.99 minutes remained for the Chinese relay team, and the bronze with 3:40.90 minutes went to Canada.
Molly O'Callaghan won her second gold medal in Singapore after winning the 200-meter freestyle final. The Australian rower finished in 1:53.48 minutes, leaving China's Li Binjie 1.04 seconds behind and American Claire Weinstein 1.19 seconds behind.
American Luca Orlando became the world champion in the men's 200-meter butterfly. He conquered the pool with a result of 1:51.87 minutes. Second, 0.77 seconds behind him, was the Pole Krzysztof Chmielewski, and the Australian Harrison Turner fought for the bronze, who was, however, 2.30 seconds behind the achievement of Urlando.
In the fastest final of the day - the men's 50-meter backstroke, the champion was the Italian Simone Cerasuolo with 26.54 seconds. Second was the Russian Kirill Prigoda with 26.62 seconds, and the Chinese Qin Haiyan won the bronze with 26.67 seconds.