Simone Manuel of the United States looks on following the Women’s 4x100m Medley Relay Final day seventeen of the Budapest 2017 FINA World Championships on July 30, 2017 in Budapest, Hungary. (Photo by Adam Pretty/Getty Images)
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Simone Manuel backed up her historic victory at the Olympics with a world championship in the 100-meter freestyle on Friday.
Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom jumped out to a quick lead and was under her own world-record pace when she made the flip, with Manuel in third.
But the 20-year-old Texan stormed from behind on the return lap, steadily closing the gap until she caught the leader on the very last stroke.
Manuel touched first with a time of 52.27 seconds — edging Sjostrom by just four-hundredths of a second.
Pernille Blume of Denmark grabbed the bronze.
Last summer, Manuel became the first African-American woman to win an individual swimming gold at the Olympics when she tied Canada’s Penny Oleksiak for the gold in Rio de Janeiro.
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