World Championships, Day 5 Finals: Laura Stephens Holds On for 200 Fly Title By Nine Hundredths
Great Britain’s Laura Stephens played the role of frontrunner in the women’s 200 butterfly final to open the Thursday evening finals session at the 2024 World Championships. Stephens opened up a slight lead over top qualifier Helena Rosendahl Bach off each wall, holding on to lead at each intermediate split but never by more than 28-hundredths.
Down the stretch, Stephens received challenges from Bach, the United States’ Rachel Klinker and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Lana Pudar, but the Brit never backed down. The lead was a quarter-bodylength approaching the finish, but Bach nearly got her fingertips to the wall first as she finished on a full stroke. But in the end, Stephens touched in 2:07.35, with Denmark’s Bach just nine hundredths back in 2:07.44.
“Being a world champion still hasn’t sunk in and I feel like it’s a weird dream. It’s been a long time coming in a race like this where I have been in similar positions and I have never been able to put it together. Today it all worked really well. I felt confident going in and now look at the result,” Stephens said.
“This is my fourth world championships and my third final. Every championships I have been in I have felt like I underperformed, or things haven’t gone quite right, and I have come out disappointed. But every championships is just a matter of taking it in your stride, believing that at some point it is all going to come together, and that moment has happened for me today. This gives me a lot of confidence heading to Paris and if anything I am more excited to get back to training and the hard work and just keep on improving.”
Stephens won her first medal at a global meet. Previously, the greatest success of her career had been a 200 fly silver at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Bach, meanwhile, had won silver at the 2022 European Championships previous to this medal.
Pudar, the 18-year-old European champion in the event, swam tied for the quickest last 50 to move into bronze-medal position, touching in 2:07.92. Pudar previously won bronze in the event at the 2024 Short Course World Championships, but like her fellow medalists, this is her first medal at the long course edition of the global meet.
Interestingly, all three of the medalists were finalists in the event at last year’s World Championships, a field which featured all of the world’s elite talent in the event including medalists Summer McIntosh, Lizzie Dekkers and Regan Smith, but this time around, all three swam slower than their 2023 times. Stephens had placed seventh in 2023 in 2:07.27, and her time Thursday was eight hundredths slower, but that was enough to merit the medal she most desired.
Klinker, meanwhile, faded down the stretch and ended up fourth in 2:08.19. However, the entire meet was a breakout performance for Klinker, who knocked a full two seconds off her best time in the semifinals, going from 2:09.87 to 2:07.70. The fifth-year swimmer at Cal-Berkeley has moved herself into serious contention for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team in the event.
China’s Ma Yonghui took fifth in 2:08.77, just ahead of 2019 world champion Boglarka Kapas (2:08.81).
- 2024 World Championships Meet Home
- How to Watch: 2024 World Aquatics Championships
- 2024 World Championships – Omega Results
