Singapore (AFP) – French swimming sensation Léon Marchand won gold in the 200m individual medley at the world championships in Singapore on Thursday, a day after smashing the world record.
Marchand failed to match his previous night's heroics but his time of 1min 53.68sec was still the second-fastest of all time.
The 23-year-old was made to work hard for the win, with his University of Texas training mates Shaine Casas and Hubert Kos hot on his heels.
Casas, from the United States, finished second in 1:54.30. Kos, from Hungary, completed the 50m series of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle in 1:55.34.
The triumph gave Marchand, who won four individual golds in front of his home fans at the Paris Olympics a year ago, his first gold in Singapore.
French star Marchand enhances legend with record at world swimming championships
"I'm just so happy to be at my highest level right now, competing in front of this pretty cool crowd," said Marchand who took an extended break from swimming after his exploits in Paris and only returned to competition in May.
He is focusing on the medley events in Singapore and had said at the outset that he was aiming to break the 200m medley record.
He did that in style in Wednesday's semi-finals. He registered a new mark of 1min 52.69sec to wipe more than a second off Ryan Lochte's feat of 1min 54.00 which was set at the world championships in Shanghai in July 2011.
Marchand's performance in the final could not quite reach Wednesday's level but it was enough to deliver France's second gold of the championships.
