Tokyo (AFP)
Hungarian Kristof Milak crushed the final in the 200m butterfly to clinch the first Olympic title of his career at age 21, while breaking Michael Phelps' Olympic record on Wednesday in Tokyo.
Reigning world champion and world record holder, Milak swam in 1 min 51 sec 25 to beat Japan's Tomoru Honda (1: 53.73) and Italy's Federico Burdisso (1: 54.45).
Milak's coronation was expected since he revealed himself at the 2019 Worlds in Gwangju (South Korea) by beating the world record of Michael Phelps (1: 50.73), at only 19 years old.
The American legend's Olympic record dated from the Beijing Games in 2008 (1: 52.03).
Milak entered his competition slowly on Monday night (1: 53.58), but knocked out the semi-finals the next day (1: 52.22) without giving the impression of forcing, relegating Brazilian Leonardo de Deus to almost three seconds ( 1: 54.97) and South African Chad Le Clos (1: 55.06).
Le Clos, Olympic champion over the distance in London in 2012, held up for a long time Wednesday before exploding in the last 50 m to finish only 5th (1: 54.93).
Far behind Milak, young Tomoru Honda and Federico Burdisso, both 19, also won the first Olympic medal of their careers.
Milak had already distinguished himself in the world in 2017, the swimmer from Budapest had then stolen world silver in the 100 meters butterfly behind the American star of the sprint Caeleb Dressel, whom he will face at this distance from Thursday evening.
If the Covid-19 disrupted his year 2020, the Hungarian rebounded in 2021 by winning the European titles of the 200 m (1: 51.10) as the 100 m butterfly (50.18), where he approached the record for world established by Caeleb Dressel during the 2019 Worlds in Gwangju (49.50).
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