Hungary's Kristof Milak celebrates taking gold in the men's 100 meters butterfly finals during the Budapest 2022 World Aquatics Championships at Duna Arena in Budapest, Hungary on June 24, 2022. Photo: AFP

Hungary's Olympic swimming champion Kristof Milak smashed his own world record in the 19th FINA World Championships two weeks ago, but the 22-year-old still has great expectations for the future.

"I wonder what else is in me, because I have very high expectations for the future," he told Xinhua on Monday. "In fact, I set my own expectations higher than anyone else has ever set them for me."

He added that having had the chance to swim in front of a home audience was something "unique and irreplaceable."

Milak smashed his own 200 meters butterfly world record in front of his home crowd on June 21, with his time of 1:50.34 lowering his mark of 1:50.73 from Gwangju 2019.

Still, he was not entirely satisfied with the result. "Since I broke my own record, there was big attention of course, but even though it was a world record, I wouldn't put it among my smartest swims."

He explained that on the screens, beating the red line looks awesome, but when an athlete looks at the timer, things do not necessarily look perfect.

"I did beat my own previous performance all the way, but my one-second advantage shrunk to 0.4 seconds at the end, and it would have been smarter to spread this advantage evenly in, and then I would have been a perfect swim." 

Milak added that he made a little mental note to pay attention to such details in the future as well. "At first, I would say that I was very satisfied, but if we take a deeper look in more detail, it is necessary to examine professionally and factually what was wrong, because there were some mistakes, and you have to think about how to correct the errors. Namely, in the shortest possible time, and as well as possible."

Milak's expectations are also fueled by his hopes of being able to better prepare for his future competitions.

"My performance does not reflect my preparation, because I had to miss a lot of training due partly to my own fault and partly to no fault of my own, I was also sick in the first half of this year."

The Hungarian said he was also happy with his recent change of coach. In September 2021, he switched from Attila Selmeczi, with whom he won the gold in 200m butterfly and a silver in 100m butterfly at the Tokyo Olympic Games, to Ballads Wirth.

"It gives me confidence that I made the right decision to change coaches," Milak said, referring to his 200m butterfly and 100m butterfly wins at the Budapest Worlds. "I hope that this new relationship will pay off in the long term."

Xinhua