Michael Phelps paid tribute to Kristof Milak’s “beautiful technique” after the Hungarian teenager on Wednesday took down the American legend’s long-standing 200m butterfly record at the World Aquatics Championships in South Korea.
Phelps described Milak’s time of 1 minute, 50.73 seconds in Gwangju as “incredible,” although he admitted that his astonishment was tinged with sadness at losing a world record that had stood since 2009.
“As frustrated as I am to see that record go down, I couldn’t be happier to see how he did it,” Phelps told the New York Times. “That kid’s last 100 was incredible. He put together a great 200 fly from start to finish.”
Milak, 19, sliced a whopping 0.78 seconds off Phelps’ previous world best, which was achieved during the bodysuit era, after flirting with the record for much of the past season.
“It happened because there was a kid who wanted to do it, who dreamed of doing it, who figured out what it would take to do it,” said Phelps, who had a special fondness for the 200m fly.
“[Milak] worked on his technique until it was beautiful and put in the really, really hard work that it takes to do it — my hat’s off to him,” Phelps added.
Milak became the first swimmer to go under 1 minute, 51 seconds, while his winning margin was, remarkably, more than three seconds as Japan’s Daiya Seto finished a distant second and the South African Chad le Clos third.
“Kristof is in another league — he’s a hell of a lot faster than all of us,” said Le Clos, who beat Phelps in the 2012 London Olympic final.
Milak said that he was “honored” to break a world record held by Phelps, who he had worshiped growing up and watched videos of to polish his technique.
“I wasn’t expecting to break the record,” Milak said. “But if you put in the hard work, good things happen and I was ready. I just tried to block everything out and find a good rhythm.”
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