Hong Kong swimming star Siobhan Haughey fell short in her brave bid for a medal in the women's 200 meters freestyle at the world championships, with Australian teenager Mollie O'Callaghan winning in world-record time after a super-fast final last night in Fukuoka, Japan.
The 25-year-old Haughey, silver medalist in the event at the Tokyo Olympics two years ago, finished fourth after O'Callaghan, 19, set a blistering pace to take the gold medal with a time of one minute, 52.85 seconds.
O'Callaghan's effort smashed the 14-year-old world record of 1:52.98, set by Italian Federica Pellegrini at the 2009 championships in Rome during the performance-enhancing bodysuit era.
Olympic champion and fellow Australian Ariarne Titmus took silver in 1:53.01, while Summer McIntosh of Canada took the bronze in 1:53.65.
Haughey produced her best form of the season to clock 1:53.96, but that was not enough to get her on the podium.
She gets another chance to win a medal when she competes in the 100m freestyle, an event where she took Olympic silver in Tokyo. The preliminary heats and semi-finals will be swam today, with the final scheduled tomorrow.
Hong Kong's other swimmer yesterday, Ian Ho, finished third in his preliminary heat in the 100m freestyle with a time of 50.21 seconds but failed to advance to the semi-finals.
O'Callaghan had fired a warning shot at the Australian trials last month, beating Titmus with what was then the fastest time of the year. "I'm just really shook at the moment because coming into this I did have an injury and I was just expecting to have fun," O'Callaghan said.
China's Qin Haiyang won the men's 50m breaststroke for his second gold of the competition.
Qin, who won the 100m breaststroke title on Monday, finished in a time of 26.29 seconds, ahead of American Nic Fink and China's Sun Jiajun.
Frenchman Leon Marchand also made it two from two, winning the men's 200m butterfly to add to his 400m individual medley success.
