By Simon Evans
TOKYO (Reuters) – Australia’s Ariarne Titmus won her second gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics after defeating American rival Katie Ledecky again to win the women’s 200m freestyle on Wednesday while Hungary’s Kristof Milak powered to men’s 200m butterfly gold.
Titmus won in a time of 1:53.50 from Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey with Canada’s Penny Oleksiak third.
Ledecky, the defending gold medallist and five-times Olympic champion, finished a disappointing fifth, 1.71 behind Titmus.
Once again the 20-year-old Titmus, dubbed ‘The Terminator’, delivered a blistering final lap — she had been in third place at the 150m turn with Haughey in the lead.
Titmus had beaten Ledecky to gold in the 400m freestyle on Monday and she becomes the first Australian woman to complete the 200-400 Olympic double since Shane Gould at the Munich 1972 Games.
Ledecky is back in the pool later on Wednesday when she competes in the first edition of the women’s 1,500m freestyle.
Titmus and Ledecky are expected to face each other in the 800m freestyle on Saturday in which the American is heavily favoured, and they will also be on opposite sides in the 4x200m relay.
Milak lived up to his billing as the heavy favourite in the men’s 200m fly and won by 2.48 from Japan’s Tomoru Honda with Italy’s Federico Burdisso taking bronze.
(Reporting by Simon Evans, Additional reporting by Martin Petty, Aaron Sheldrick and Farah Master in Hong Kong and Alan Baldwin in London.)
