After a 10-year break, Rūta Meilutytė became the world champion in the 100 m breaststroke when she triumphed in the final in Fukuoka (Japan) on Tuesday, beating her title rivals by a large margin.
Rūta Meilutytė was again amazingly fast and left no chance for other capable swimmers.
Leading from the start, the 26-year-old swimmer from Kaunas increased her lead even more in the second part of the race and covered the distance in 1 minute. 4,62 sec.
South African swimmer Tajana Schoenmaker (1 minute 5,84 seconds) won silver, 1,22 seconds behind Ruta.
The bronze went to the Olympic champion of this event at the Tokyo Games, American Lydia Jacoby (1 min. 5,94 sec.).
Rio de Janeiro Olympic champion American Lilly King was fourth (1 min. 6,02 sec), 1,4 sec behind R. Meilutytė. By the way, 26-year-old L.King still owns the world record achieved in 2017 (1 min. 4,13 sec.), which the Lithuanian missed by less than half a second on Tuesday.
R.Meilutytė, who convincingly won both the selection and semi-finals of the 100 m breaststroke on Monday, became the world champion in the 50 m pool in this event after a 10-year break.
Having won gold in 2013, she later won silver (2015) and bronze last year, when she competed in Budapest after returning to the sport after a three-year career break.
In Fukuoka, R.Meilutytė will swim in the 50m breaststroke at the weekend.
