Adam Peaty missed out on beating his own world record as he successfully defended his 100metre breaststroke world title in Gwangju, South Korea in a British one-two with James Wilby.
Peaty had lowered his own global mark for the distance to 56.88seconds in Sunday's semi-final, making him the first man in history to swim under the 57secs barrier.
The 24-year-old went into the final with the 16 quickest times in history and, with no one else ever having swam faster than 58secs, his rivals always anticipated playing second fiddle.
His only real race was against the clock and he was ahead of world record pace when he turned at 26.60, but he slowed in the final metres to clock a time of 57.14, nearly a second and a half ahead of Wilby.
“My biggest demon was going faster than yesterday,” Peaty said afterwards.
“I made a tiny mistake on that first length but I’m still learning, always trying to improve and that’s the most important thing going into the Olympics next year.
"I was trying to force myself too much on the first 50 and ran out of gas, but it’s still a 57.1 so I'm over the moon. We came here doing exactly what we needed to do."
The British one-two was a repeat of the result at both the Commonwealth Games and European Championships.
While much of the field had looked nervous beforehand, Peaty looked remarkably relaxed. He boasted the fastest reaction time of the field and was rapidly into the lead.
Wilby will have his shot at his own world title in the 200m, his better event, later in the meet.
He said: “That makes me really excited for the 200m. I couldn’t be happier. We both get really pumped to see that one-two for Britain.”
