Isaac Cooper has endured another agonising near-miss in Australian colours at the world short-course championships, edged out for 50m backstroke gold by just two-hundredths of a second in a dramatic final.
But the 20-year-old Queenslander, crestfallen when the 2022 final which he thought he'd won in Melbourne had to be re-run, was far from tearful this time as he celebrated silver and an Oceanian record.
Cooper, who'd won this event at the Doha long-course worlds in February, looked set for victory again on Friday after turning first at halfway.
Yet he ended up being edged on seemingly the last stroke by 18-year-old Russian Miron Lifintsev, competing for a powerful 'neutral' team, who clocked a world junior record 22.47sec to the Aussie's 22.49.
It was at his home championships in 2022 that Cooper, who'd earlier that year been sent home from a Commonwealth Games training camp for what Swimming Australia described as a misuse of prescription medication, thought he had bounced back spectacularly.
But he hadn't realised someone else had false started in the race, which then had to be re-swum later in the evening. That time, he finished second, leaving him tearfully telling reporters afterwards: "Life just keeps throwing s*** at me ..."
But Cooper was smiling after Friday's near-miss in which, ironically, he recorded exactly the same time as in Melbourne. "I am really happy to finally have that time as my official PB," he said.
"That's my eighth race now and I am so happy with how I have been able to back up - and there's still the 50m freestyle to go. "The backstroke is my main event and I think it was what I was naturally put on this earth to do, but the 50m freestyle is such a prestigious event … and that is the title I am after. But I am just so happy, it was just such great racing out there."
After Cooper's silver, the men's 4x200m relay quartet of Max Giuliani, Edward Sommerville, Harrison Turner and Elijah Winnington also finished second with an Oceanian record behind an extraordinary world record swim from the US.
The Aussies had been on world record schedule too briefly while clocking 6:45.54, but were blitzed by the US who were led off by a world record 200m from Luke Hobson (1:38.91) then pulled away through Carson Foster, Shaine Casas and Kieran Smith for a landmark 6:40.51.
That made it 18 new world records over four days in Budapest with American Gretchen Walsh again topping the bill, clocking three new individual records on Friday to make it six overall in her amazing week.
After a 100m butterfly record in the morning's heats (53.24sec), she lowered it in the semi-final (52.87), before 25 minutes later, striking gold in the 100m individual medley in 55.11sec, slashing six-tenths of a second off the mark she'd set on Thursday.
Australian Alex Perkins, who made the 100m fly final (4th, 55.57) along with compatriot Lily Price (6th, 55.74), just sighed: "She's pretty incredible, backing up race after race - it's amazing to see."
With Kate Douglass setting a new global record for 200m breaststroke in 2:12.50 and teammate Regan Smith doing likewise in the 50m backstroke (25.23sec), the Americans continued to dominate, taking their tally to 13 gold, eight silver and five bronze.
Australia are fourth in the table, behind Canada and the Russian 'neutral' team, with two golds, four silver and three bronze.
In the women's 1500m, Australian Tiana Kritzinger was fifth and teammate Moesha Johnson sixth in the pool 'marathon' won by Germany's Isabel Gose.
Iona Anderson was eighth in the women's 50m backstroke, with Josh Yong seventh in the men's 200m breaststroke, won by Spain's Carles Coll Marti.
