Hosszu delights home fans with 200m IM title

Katinka Hosszu said defending her women’s 200m individual medley title in front of her home crowd at the world aquatics championships on Monday was an “unforgettable experience”.
Hosszu clocked 2min 07.00sec to retain the gold medal with Japan’s Yui Ohashi in silver at 0.91sec and Madisyn Cox of the United States earning bronze, 2.71sec behind.
The 28-year-old Hosszu is the first woman to win three gold medals in the event at world championships, following her successes at Barcelona in 2013 and Kazan two years later.
Hosszu was well short of her world record of 2:06.12, set in Kazan two years ago, but is the favourite to also defend her 400m IM world title on Sunday.
She was roared on to her third straight 200m IM world crown by the passionate crowd in Budapest.
“It was really amazing how everyone was supporting me in red, white and green, when I got out of the pool, I couldn’t believe it,” Hosszu said.
Fireworks were set off next to the podium as she collected the sixth world title of her career.
The crowd sang along with the Hungarian national anthem ‘Himnusz’ as Hosszu struggled to keep her emotions in check.
“Thank you for the experience, it was unforgettable — I almost cried,” admitted Hungary’s “Iron Lady”.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Adam Peaty failed to beat his own world record, but was happy to defend the men’s 100m breaststroke title.
Peaty clocked a new championships record of 57.47 seconds with Kevin Cordes of the United States second at 1.32 back with Russia’s Kirill Prigoda third at 1.58.
The 22-year-old was delighted to defend the world title he first won in Kazan two years ago with plenty of support from the Budapest crowd.
“A lot of hard work goes into competing and the crowd were amazing, I want to thank everyone out there,” Peaty said after his win.
“It was incredible, when I walked out I felt like I was in Britain, as everyone was cheering for me so much.
“I’m very happy, I put in a 26.5 seconds (for the first 50m), then built off that on the back end.”
Peaty had targeted his own world record of 57.13, set when he won the Olympic title last year in Rio de Janeiro, but was not disappointed to come up short.
“No, I’m still 1.5 secs ahead of the rest of the world, it’s not the time it’s the way I did it,” he said.
“You don’t want to keep breaking it every year.
“Obviously I can find areas where I can improve, for example, that was the turn tonight.
“The 26.5 is very promising, not many people can go out on 26.5 and come back.
Earlier, Ben Proud won the men’s 50m butterfly gold — but only realised he had won when no-one else celebrated.
Proud, 22, clocked 22.75 seconds in the sprint event with Brazil’s Nicholas Santos second at 0.04 secs back while Andrii Govorov of Ukraine took bronze at 0.09 in a tight finish.
“At first I didn’t realise I had won,” admitted Britain’s Proud, clearly shocked by his own victory.
“I was waiting for someone else to start celebrating, but when no one did, I looked on the scoreboard and saw my name on top.”
Proud was born in London, but moved back to the UK from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as an 11-year-old to follow his dreams of becoming a pro swimmer.
“It’s a weird feeling, this is something I’ve dreamt of since I started swimming,” he said.