Japan’s Seto breaks short-course swim record to stun Clos

SHANGHAI: Japan’s Daiya Seto smashed Chad le Clos’s short-course record in the men’s 200m butterfly as he grabbed gold at the world championships to stun the South African yesterday. The 24-year-old Seto pipped his more famous rival by only 0.08sec to make a piece of history on the first day of action in the Chinese city of Hangzhou.

Seto, who won bronze in the 400m medley at the Rio 2016 Olympics, recovered from a comparatively slow start to hold off Le Clos down the stretch and triumph in 1min 48.24sec. It was a disappointing silver for the 26-year-old Le Clos, the reigning long-course and short-course world champion.

He had also held the short-course record of 1:48.56, set in Singapore in 2013, until Seto bettered it in style. A distant third was China’s Li Zhuhao. “I didn’t expect the world record,” Seto was quoted by the Xinhua news agency as saying. “Now I will focus on the 400m IM (individual medley) and I hope I can break the 400m IM world record also.” Australian teenager Ariarne Titmus stormed back to win the women’s 200m freestyle gold and underline her status as a rising star of swimming.

The 18-year-old, who won 400m and 800m freestyle gold at the Commonwealth Games in her home country earlier this year, ran down the American Mallory Comerford to seal victory in a thrilling race.

Titmus was back in third after 150m, but she burst to the finish in a time of 1:51.38 to relegate Comerford into silver, with Femke Heemskerk of the Netherlands taking bronze having led for half of a nail-biting race.

Titmus put her head in her hands when she realised she had taken gold, powering to the win with 0.43sec to spare over Comerford. Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu, a triple gold medallist at the 2016 Rio Olympics, was strong favourite in the women’s 400m individual medley-and she did not disappoint.