Chinese swimmers perform their routine in the artistic swimming team technical final in Budapest, Hungary, on June 21, 2022. Photo: VCG

Chinese swimmers grabbed their chances on the fourth day of the 19th FINA World Championships, winning a historic gold in artistic swimming, another gold and a bronze medal in the women's 200 meters freestyle on Tuesday.

China's Yang Junxuan won the 200 meters race with a time of one minute and 54.92 seconds, while her 18-year-old teammate Tang Muhan took the bronze medal with 1:56.25. 

The silver medal went to Australian swimmer Mollie O'Callaghan in 1:55.22.

Earlier, China made history as they clinched the women's team technical for the first time, collecting a total of 94.7202 points in the final 12 teams. 

The Japanese team got the silver, with a score of 92.2261 points, while Italy came third with a slightly lesser score of 91.0191 points.

"This is a historic moment. We've never won the team technical gold in a FINA World Championship before. This is definitely a big breakthrough since China's artistic swimming team was founded in 1983," head coach Zhang Xiaohuan told Xinhua following the victory.

"The enemy is ourselves. I asked them to deliver their best. We had really hard training in the past seven months and it's all deserved," Zhang added.

The other sensation of the day was the new world record set by local favorite Kristof Milak in the men's 200 meters butterfly as Milak timed 1:50.34 to beat his own record of 1:50.73 created at the 2019 World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, on July 23, 2019.

This is Hungary's first gold at the worlds and Leon Marchand of France finished second by 1:53.37 and Tomoru Honda of Japan third in 1:53.61.

Defending champion Caeleb Dressel of the US pulled out of the 100 meters freestyle semifinals and mixed medley relay just before the session.

In the men's 800 meters freestyle, Bobby Finke of the United States won by 7:39.36, beating Florian Wellbrock of Germany (7:39.63) and Mykhailo Romanchuk of Ukraine (7:40.05).

Nic Fink won the second gold of the day for the US in men's 50 meters breaststroke with a time of 26.45 seconds, narrowly beating Italian Nicolo Martinenghi's 26.48 and teammate Michael Andrew's 26.72.

The last final of Tuesday was the mixed 4x100 meters medley relay, which was won by Team USA by 3:38.79. Australia finished 3:41.34 for silver and the Dutch team took the third in 3:41.54.