Australia's O'Callaghan smashes 14-year-old record to win world title

FUKUOKA, Japan : Australia's Mollie O'Callaghan finished with a flourish to break the longest-standing world record in women's swimming, claiming the 200 metres freestyle title in a time of one minute, 52.85 seconds at the World Aquatics Championships on Wednesday.

O'Callaghan broke the performance-enhancing bodysuit era mark of 1:52.98 set by Italian Federica Pellegrini at the 2009 worlds in Rome, and was 0.16 seconds ahead of silver medallist Ariarne Titmus of Australia.

Summer McIntosh of Canada was 0.80 seconds behind to take bronze in a world junior record time.

Olympic champion Titmus had blazed to the 400m freestyle title on Sunday to erase 16-year-old McIntosh's mark and was well placed to go for another record after topping the semi-final time sheet.

But it was O'Callaghan who made light of a knee issue that she suffered before the meet to take charge of a tight race at the end and upstage her illustrious compatriot, with China's Yang Junxuan not defending the title she won in Budapest.

"I'm absolutely excited. I was not expecting that at all entering this. I just wanted to have fun and just give it a crack. I was really nervous leading up to this because I didn't know how I was going to race," O'Callaghan told Channel Nine.

"The lead-up to this has been so up and down like a roller-coaster, just with injury and then coming off trials and all that. Just to do that, I just think is incredible and I'm excited for what else I can do."

Hungary's world record holder Kristof Milak was absent from the men's 200m butterfly that followed, as the Olympic and world champion skipped the meet saying that he was not physically or mentally in a position to compete.

Frenchman Leon Marchand made the most of Milak's withdrawal to capture