Sjostrom claims fourth gold; ‘shocked’ Proud wins world title

BUDAPEST, Hungary: Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden became the first woman to win four golds in the women’s 100m butterfly following her victory in Monday’s final at the world championships.

The 23-year-old clocked 55.53 seconds, a new championships record, just 0.05sec from her own world record set at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics last year.

She is the first reigning Olympic champion to add the world title in the event.Australia’s Emma McKeon took silver at 0.65sec back with Kelsi Worrell taking bronze at 0.84.Sjostrom broke the 100m freestyle record on Sunday when she became the first woman to swim under 52 seconds.

Sjostrom first won the 100m butterfly title as a 15-year-old at the 2009 championships in Rome.She failed to defend it in 2011 in Shanghai, but took gold again at both the 2013 championships in Barcelona and then again two years ago in Kazan.

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 came up short in his bid.

“I need to have a few more 57 lows to get down to 56, but I’m just going to follow that curve now and see where it goes,” he added.Peaty will now look to also defend his 50m world title in Wednesday’s (tomorrow’s) final in his bid to repeat the breaststroke sprint double he achieved in Kazan.

“It wasn’t easy, but there is a bit in reserve so it’s looking good for the 50m,” he added.He hopes his victory will trigger more swimming gold for his country after he became the first Briton to win in the Budapest pool.

“We have quite a young team, with new faces after Rio, so it will hopefully give that a little bit of a push,” he added.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.”“It’s a weird feeling, this is something I’ve dreamt of since I started swimming,” he said.