Laura Stephens wins historic gold for Great Britain in 200m butterfly

Laura Stephens becomes the first British woman in 13 years to win an individual gold at the World Aquatics Championships with victory in the 200m butterfly.

Laura Stephens became the first British woman in 13 years to win an individual gold at the World Aquatics Championships with victory in the 200m butterfly on Thursday.
The 24-year-old – who placed second in the event at the 2022 Commonwealth Games – clinched her first-ever World Aquatics Championships gold medal in 2:07.35, finishing nine-hundredths of a second ahead of Danish runner-up Helena Bach.

Stephens’s triumph saw her become the first woman for Great Britain since 2011 – when Rebecca Adlington took the 800m freestyle crown – to win a gold medal at the World Championships, while she also became the first Briton to place first in any swimming event at the current tournament.

“I can’t believe it – all I was thinking about in the last 50m was holding on,” Stephens told BBC Sport after making history for the Brits in the Middle East.

“I think I executed well – it’s all about the Olympics this summer and we’re still working towards that and this is great, but we’ve still got some hard work to go.”

Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Lana Pudar (2:07.92) took home the bronze medal behind Bach and Stephens, who was one of five British swimmers to finish on the podium on Thursday, as the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team won the silver in their event.

— Team GB (@TeamGB) February 15, 2024
Freya Colbert, Abbie Wood, Lucy Hope and Medi Eira combined for an overall time of 7:50.90, finishing just over three and a half seconds worse off than the Chinese quartet, who topped the standings with 7:47.26 on the board.

Australia, who set a new world record of 7:37.50 en route to the 2023 title, swapped places with last year’s bronze medallists China this time around, settling for third thanks to a time of 7:51.41.

However, there were near misses for both Matthew Richards and Lauren Cox, as the former came agonisingly close to a top-three finish in the men’s 100m freestyle, but a time of 47.82 was only good enough for fourth place.

Hungary’s Nandor Nemeth finished 0.04 seconds quicker than Richards to clinch the bronze, while China’s Pan Zhanle edged out Italy’s Alessandro Miressi to take the gold in 47.53 seconds.

Cox was remarkably just 0.04 seconds off from winning bronze in the women’s 50m backstroke too, clocking 27.65 to take fourth place behind Ingrid Wilm (27.61), Iona Anderson (27.45) and world champion Claire Curzan (27.43).

Finally, Duncan Scott ended the men’s 200m medley event in sixth place with a time of 1:57.75, just over one second behind Canada’s Finlay Knox, who clocked 1:56.64 to win his first World Championships title.

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