DEBRECEN, Hungary, December 13. JUST minutes after Otylia Jedrzejczak set the women's 200 butterfly world record at the European Short Course Championships held in Debrecen, Hungary, Laszlo Cseh gave the hometown crowd something else to cheer about with a global standard of his own in the 200 IM.
Cseh became the first man under 1:53 by the slimmest of margins when he touched in 1:52.99 to eclipse the short-lived record of 1:53.14 set by Brazil's Thiago Pereira during the Berlin stop of the World Cup series in November.
Cseh led from the get-go with quick splits of 24.14, 51.64 and 1:25.11 on the way to the 1:52.99.
"I really wanted to break the world record, I was ready to do that," Cseh said. "Two days ago, I wrote down the time what I thought I would swim today and put it in an envelope. I gave it to the president of Hungarian Swimming. You would not believe it if I would not have done this, but I was very exact. Two days ago I said I would swim 1.52.99. I was right! This is my present to my National Swimming Federation, which is celebrating its 100th birthday!"
Special thanks to Norbert Agh for contributing to this report.
Click here to view event results PDF file.