America’s Ryan Lochte broke a 19-month record drought and deepened Michael Phelps’s season of woe as he won a thrilling 200m individual medley at the World Championships in Shanghai.
In a high-tempo evening at Oriental Sports Centre, Australian James Magnussen delivered a fifth-to-first victory in the 100m freestyle and Jiao Liuyang claimed China’s fourth swimming gold in the women’s 200m butterfly.
Lochte outshone Olympic champion Phelps to win the medley in one minute and 54 seconds, shaving one-tenth of a second off his 2009 world record, with teammate taking silver and Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh third. With the win, the 26-year-old Lochte retained his world title and earned further bragging rights over his rival, who is struggling to reach the level that has earned him 14 Olympic gold medals.
“I knew it was going to be a battle between me and Phelps,” said Lochte. “I got the better end this time. Any time you break a world record, you’ve got to be excited. I trained really hard and it paid off.”
But Phelps stormed back with a win in the 200m butterfly, which is not one of Lochte’s events, sealing the 23rd world title of his record-breaking career as the clock ticks down to his retirement.
In the 100m freestyle final, Magnussen was well out of the medals at the turn but roared past the field over the second 50m to take it in 47.63 seconds, ahead of Canada’s Brent Hayden and William Meynard of France.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 29th, 2011.
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