FINA WC Budapest 2017 Sunday 7/30 – Triple gold as arena swimmers make podium their own on last night in Budapest

Sarah Sjostrom, Katinka Hosszu and Gregorio Paltrinieri all won gold medals as a steady procession of arena swimmers made their way to the podium on the final night of the World Championships in Budapest.

As well as the three winners Ranomi Kromowidjojo came second behind Sarah in the 50m freestyle while Ruta Meilutyte and Gabriele Detti were fourth in the 50m breaststroke and 1500m freestyle respectively.

Sarah had set a world record of 23.67secs in the 50m freestyle semi-finals on Saturday before coming back to the Duna Arena to win the final in 23.69, the second fastest time in history.

Ranomi became the fourth fastest woman ever with a time of 23.85, matching her silver medal from the last World Championships in Kazan, Russia.

Victory means Sarah leaves Budapest with three golds and one silver medal and two world records in the 50 and 100m freestyle.

She said: “This World Championships went well. I would have been satisfied with three gold medals beforehand too.

“I am happy that on the final day I managed to do it but I have a little discomfort because of the 100 freestyle (where she got the silver medal).

“At the same time I am very proud that I could do two world records in Budapest.”

Of her race on Sunday, she said: “It was not perfect race. It was a really bad finish but it doesn’t matter if it is a bad race if I win gold.

“I am really happy. I didn’t think my first freestyle gold would be in the 50 but it was. It’s really nice.

“It’s great I have even won a free gold as I have been chasing the free. I was surprised with the time, the first 25 was really good but the finish was really bad.

“It will be really nice to see how fast I can swim this race when I get a bit stronger.”

Ranomi was ecstatic after her second place, beaming: “This competition was simply unbelievable.

“My goal was to get a medal whatever the colour is. At 50m a lot depends on the start and I didn’t succeed in doing so well but all in all I am very happy with silver.”

Katinka led from start to finish in the 400m individual medley and had a dominant victory in 4:29.33, a new championship record.

It means Katinka enjoyed a three-peat – three consecutive victories in the same event – having taken gold in Kazan in 2015 and Barcelona two years before that.

After clambering out of the pool she embraced husband and coach Shane Tusup and wrapped herself in a Hungary flag as the home crowd went wild, as loud as a football match.

It means she finishes the competition with golds in the 200m and 400m individual medley, silver in the 200m backstroke and bronze in the 200m butterfly.

She was thrilled, saying: “I expected that it was going to be difficult to swim the 400IM on my last day as it was always the last event in the past few years.

“In the last 100 metre I heard the crowd cheering and then I tried to finish it but the last 25m were really slow.

“This World Championships could not have been better for me. I thought that swimming in front of a home crowd would be wonderful but not that much! I tried to benefit from this all week long.”

Gregorio started to pull away after 1000m of his 1500m freestyle race and eventually won in 14mins 35.85secs

It meant the Italian defended his title from the 2015 World Championships with Gregorio also the Olympic gold medallist.

It was a tough race for Gregorio who said: “I’m happy. It was difficult because I knew that Misha (Romanchuk, who came second) was going to be glued to me after 800 but I didn’t want to start a second race after 800.

“I needed  to swim better from the beginning. He was smart and it hurt me in the middle of the race. At 1200m, I put my head down and put everything I had into it even though I felt dead tired.”