Zirk said post-race: "I started my first short-track race of the year in the Czech Republic today, in the city of Plzen. Since I had just come from a three-week long, high-altitude camp, my expectations were not high. In addition, yesterday's long travel day didn't make me feel any better either."

"The first start was the 200 m butterfly, where already that morning I had the goal of attacking the record. To my surprise, it was exceeded in the preliminaries with a margin of 0.26 seconds and the time was 1.54.06, which gave me the highest ranking for the finals," he added, noting that in the evening heats he improved that time to 1.52.9, the fastest time posted in Europe over the short-course this year, and fourth world-wide.

Zirk races in the 200 m freestyle in Plzen Saturday.

The short-course event is 25m (ie. eight lengths to make 200m), and the current men's world record is 1:48.24, set in December 2018 by Japanese swimmer Daiyo Seto.

Over the long-course (50m lengths) the current world record, set in July, is the 1:50.34, by Hungarian swimmer Kristóf Milák, who three years earlier had been the first swimmer to have broken US legend Michael Phelps' near-20-year dominance as world record holder.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!