Milák Wins Second Hungarian Gold at the Tokyo Olympics

World champion and world record holder Kristóf Milák won the gold medal in the 200m butterfly with an Olympic record on Wednesday at the Tokyo Games. The other Hungarian competitor in the event, Tamás Kenderesi, finished fourth.

The 21-year-old world-class swimmer was already in the lead in the first 50 meters, despite the usual strong start by Chad le Clos of South Africa, the champion of the London Olympics. Milák dropped back to third place at the halfway mark, but in the second hundred meters, he built up a comfortable lead as his immediate rivals began to tire. Rio Games bronze medalist Kenderesi used his usual tactic of racing at the back of the field in sixth or seventh place to save energy for the last 50 meters.

In the final stretch, it was all to race for as Milák triumphed with a time of 1:51.25, his third best ever, breaking the 2008 Olympic record set by the legendary Michael Phelps in Beijing. Kenderesi, meanwhile, came all the way up to fourth place, crossing the line at 1:54.52, seven hundredths of a second off the bronze medal.

Milák’s gold medal is the second one for the Hungarian delegation as on Saturday, Áron Szilágyi won the men’s saber fencing individual title, becoming the first male competitor to win three consecutive individual Olympic championships in this discipline.

Two bronze medals were added to the Hungarian collection on Wednesday. The men's saber fencing team of Tamás Decsi, Csanád Gémesi, András Szatmári and Áron Szilágyi defeated Germany 45-40 for the third place.

In judo, 27-year-old Krisztián Tóth defeated two times European champion Mihail Igolnikov representing the Russian Olympic Committee with a waza-ari in extra time in the 90-kilogram weight category.

At the end of the competition day on Wednesday, Hungarian athletes are on 12^th place in the medal table with two gold, one silver and two bronze medals.