Luke Hobson<\/strong> cut 0.30 from the 200 free WR he set earlier this week when he went 1:38.61 at the short-course worlds in Budapest.<\/p>\n The USA swimmer had made clear his intention for the final when he blasted 1:41.55 to lead the prelims, days after he\u00a0downed Paul Biedermann\u2019s<\/strong> super-suited individual WR to 1:38.91 on the 4\u00d72 lead-off as the quartet won gold in world record time.<\/p>\n He returned to the Duna Arena on Sunday evening for the final individual event of the six-day meet where he took over the lead at the 75m mark before coming home in a new global standard.<\/p>\n Australian Max Giuliani<\/strong> set an Oceania record of 1:40.36 to take silver with Lucas Henveaux<\/strong> of Belgium winning bronze in 1:41.13.<\/p>\n Hobson, who is coached by Bob Bowman<\/strong>, said: “After the relay I knew that was a great split and I felt it was a really good swim. Yesterday was the third time I ever swam the 200m free in short course, I didn’t really know what I was doing or how to swim the race.<\/p>\n “But I thought that I could clean a few things up in the back 50 and I thought I executed those fixes really well and I knew that would pay off dropping another 3 tenths off the record.”<\/p>\n The 21-year-old thrives on the excitement of racing in the long and short-course pools where the likes of David Popovici<\/strong>, Matt Richards,<\/strong> Duncan Scott<\/strong>, Hwang Sunwoo<\/strong> and Lukas M\u00e4rtens\u00a0<\/b>provide some of the opposition with the 200 enjoying great depth and offering some thrilling racing.<\/p>\n Hobson won bronze at the World Championships in Doha before moving on to Paris where he was third once more, 0.08 ahead of fourth-placed Scott. Then on to Budapest and his world-record exploits.<\/p>\n “It was a great year,” he said. “It was super exciting. I feel like I am in a really great spot right now. 2024 was a really good year for me and I am excited and looking forward next year in Singapore and of course I am focused on Los Angeles 2028. It feels amazing to be one of the guys that others swimmers look up to because that is what I was doing for many years in my career. I am going going to work as hard as I can and see if I can continue to get better.”<\/p>\n Giuliani was joint sixth at 75 before moving up to fourth at halfway. The Olympic 4×2 bronze medallist made his way into second with 50m to go but the deficit behind Hobson was too great to overcome while he cut 0.28 from Ed Sommerville’s<\/strong> Oceania standard of 1:40.64 set at the Australian Championships in September.<\/p>\n \u201cNot too bad, ought to have won, but Luke is the absolute freak on the short-course,” he said. “Short-course is definitely my thing, so I shine where I shine. The\u00a0 record is pretty good, I can\u2019t really complain. I go and get ready to do the best I can for my team in the relay. It\u2019s going to hurt really bad, but I\u2019m here for it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Henveaux claimed the first Belgian medal in the event in what was a national record. The Loughborough-based swimmer became the first Belgian man to win a freestyle medal at short-course worlds.<\/p>\n \u201cI was fourth in the 400m three days ago and yeah I’m absolutely, actually stoked because it was very close to the podium there,” he said. “I really thought I could get it and I was pretty disappointed after getting fourth and now I saw this race, there’s a lot of great swimmers here. “The world record was broken. I knew Luke could go out faster, I tried to take advantage of it by going close to the lane. I felt a little bit of an advantage and in the last 25 metres I just saw that I was pretty much on a line with everyone and it was just a lot of guts and I executed it well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n