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Chad le Clos of South Africa gestures after the men’s 200-metre butterfly finals during the FINA Swimming World Cup short-course swim in Singapore on November 5, 2013. Clos swims a new world record of 1m 48.56sec to win the gold medal.
Singapore, Nov 6 (IANS) South African Chad le Clos bettered his own world record in the 200 metre butterfly Tuesday with a time of 1:48.56 in the FINA Swimming World Cup here, Xinhua reported.
He finished comfortably ahead of Poland’s Pawel Korzeniowski, who timed 1:53.59.
The Olympic gold medalist set the previous world record of 1:49.04 in Netherlands in August this year.
He also took the 50 metre butterfly title in 22.24 seconds Tuesday.
“It’s good for me coming off of a lay off since World Championships so I’m really excited,” he said. “Singapore brings out the best in me and tonight’s crowd has been fantastic.”
“I’m looking forward to tomorrow, especially for the freestyle events because I know it’s going to be very tough,” he added.
Le Clos is expected to be competing in the men’s 100 metre butterfly, too, Wednesday.
Also on Tuesday, the Australian quartet of Robert Hurley, Christian Sprenger, Alicia Coutts and Cate Campbell set the world record in the mixed 4×50 metre medley relay during the heats with a timing of 1:39.08. They returned to the pool for the finals in the evening and finished even better with a winning time of 1:38.02.
Sprenger said he and his teammates came to Singapore with a good idea of having four good athletes work together to “chip away at the world record”.
“We want to continue to better it in the next two legs in Tokyo and Beijing, so hopefully by Beijing we can have a nice good time on the board,” he said.
Katinka Hosszu of Hungary continued her winning ways with two golds and one silver out of the five events she signed up for. Hosszu started off the evening with a silver in the 200 metre freestyle before coming in first in the 100 metre butterfly and the 200 metre individual medley.
