(Reuters) – Olympic champion Zac Stubblety-Cook set a world record in the men’s 200 metres breaststroke at the Australian swimming championships in Adelaide on Thursday.
Stubblety-Cook clocked 2:05.95 to better Russian Anton Chupkov’s mark of 2:06.12 set in 2019 at the 2019 swimming world championships in Gwangju, South Korea.
The 23-year-old also holds the Olympic record for the 200m breaststroke, which he set en route to winning the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics last year.
“It’s a bit surreal to be perfectly honest, it doesn’t feel real,” Stubblety-Cook said after the race.
“It will probably sink in over the next few days. I was obviously hoping to swim fast and hoping to swim close to my best but that is just something else.”
(Reporting by Aadi Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Toby Davis)
