Panicky Aussie is latest teen to excel

BUDAPEST • Australian Mollie O'Callaghan overcame "panic" to continue the surge of teenage medallists in Budapest and become the youngest women's 100m freestyle world champion in more than 30 years on Thursday.

Two American veterans, Lilly King in the women's 200m breaststroke and Ryan Murphy in the men's 200m backstroke, then won breakthrough gold medals before the US men ended the day by winning the 4x50m freestyle relay.

O'Callaghan, 18, followed David Popovici of Romania and Italian Benedetta Pilato, both 17, and Canadian Summer McIntosh, 15, in collecting individual golds.

O'Callaghan edged the world-record holder Sarah Sjostrom, 28, of Sweden by 0.13sec in 52.67sec, while 19-year-old American Torri Huske took bronze.

At 18 years and 82 days, O'Callaghan became the event's youngest winner since 1991, when Nicole Haislett of the United States won the title at 18 years and 22 days. But she said she had suffered badly from pre-race nerves.

"The worst ever," she said.

"I was panicking in my bed, having a little bit of a cramp in my leg, just feeling dizzy, feeling out of it, starting to panic, but I knew I had my teammates there... I guess that kind of uplifted me for the race."

Zac Stubblety-Cook, 23, who took the men's 200m breaststroke, said that there were reasons this had been a youthful competition.

"The year after the Olympics is a bit of a different feel, the young bloods are coming through," the Australian said, before pointing out that in his event "two of us from the (Tokyo) Olympics were in the final tonight".

King, 25, who has dominated the 50m and 100m breaststroke, grabbed her first gold at 200m, the longest breaststroke distance.

Murphy, 26, ended a long streak of duller-coloured medals when he won the men's 200m back.

Since grabbing two individual Olympic golds in Rio in 2016, he had collected six silvers and two bronzes in major global championships, including a silver in the 100m back in Budapest.

In yesterday's finals, Sjostrom claimed her fourth straight 50m fly world crown after winning in 24.95sec, ahead of France's Melanie Henique (25.31sec) and China's Zhang Yufei (25.32sec). Briton Ben Proud won the 50m free in 21.32sec, ahead of Michael Andrew (21.41sec) and Maxime Grousset (21.57sec).

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE