Chinese swimming sensation Sun Yang cemented his status as the fastest man in the 400m freestyle at the Kazan Aquatics World Championships on Sunday.
The 23-year-old Huangzhou native repeated his feat from the 2013 Barcelona events with an impressive time of 3:42.58, 1.17 seconds ahead of Britain's James Guy, who led the first 300m of the final and touched in at 3:43.75. Canadian Ryan Cohcrane came in third place at 3:44.59.
"It's my best result in two years," said Sun, who shed tears after winning his third straight world championship title. "It's a difficult race. Guy was really a threat in the final and I put all my effort in the last 100m."
Doubts have been cast over Sun's form prior to the event, as the 2012 London Olympic champion failed to produce impressive results in recent years, as well as being involved in a doping scandal that was revealed last September.
Sun served a doping ban earlier in 2014 and had not made it public until later in September that year. The ban prevented Sun from training in Australia and his Australian coach Denis Cotterell was not allowed to coach him.
"I went through a hard time and met a lot of difficulties," said Sun, who had claimed his innocence in the scandal. "But I overcame them with my coach Zhang Yadong and foreign coach Brian [King]. We trained very hard in Australia, and all we did is to have good results in Kazan."
"I have been a swimmer for more than 10 years and I have some injuries," he added. "I need to deal with the injuries of my hand and shoulder after the world championships. My doctor told me to have surgery but I didn't have time for that."
"I know that it will be harder and harder for me to keep top form as I turn older and older, but I will try my best," Sun said.
Sun added that he is setting his sights next on the 2016 Rio Olympics.
"I want to break the 400m free world record at the Rio Games," he said. "I know it will be a tough job as the old world record was set in 2009 with the help of a Fastskin swimsuit. But I want to give it a try. It is my next goal."
Sun said that he is gunning for four titles in Kazan. Aside from the 400m freestyle event, he will also compete in the 200m, 800m and 1,500m freestyle categories.