Winners were announced in 74 events in five aquatic sports - swimming, open water swimming, diving, diving, water polo - at the FINA World Championships among the competitors from 180 countries. A total of 496 medals* were awarded to the athletes during the event.

The United States topped the medal table with 18 gold, 14 silver and 17 bronze medals. The American team also set a new championship record in swimming with 45 podium finishes, beating their own previous world champ medal tally by 7.

China finished second (18, 2, 8), as Italy (9, 7, 6) took third place. Australia, Canada, Japan, France, Ukraine, Germany and Hungary joined the top ten with the hosts finishing with 5 medals (2, 2, 1).

While the United States controlled the swimming discipline, China dominated in diving. The Asian country took gold in all 13 events and finished with 17 total medals.

On Day 5 of diving in Budapest, China won its 100th gold since Gao Min earned China’s first at the FINA World Championships 1986. She posted a video of herself diving in a river on China’s Twitter-like to celebrate while adding, "I had the honour to win the first women's springboard gold for my country 36 years ago, and today I am diving once again to congratulate Team China."

Artistic swimming capped off a stunning week of sport in the Hungarian capital as both China and Ukraine won a medal in every event they competed in. Ukraine tallied an event-best seven medals while China earned four golds.

A special highlight of this year’s FINA World Championships were the unique results in swimming in two events.  In the final of the men’s 200m breaststroke, Japan’s Yu Hanagumura and Sweden’s Erik Petersson both won silver medals, meaning that the bronze medal was not awarded. Meanwhile, Australia’s Meg Harris and Erika Brown of the US swam exactly the same time to claim bronze medals in the women’s 50m freestyle final.

(*Total medals were calculated by taking all members of the duets and teams into account, with 13 players from each water polo side)

Competitors took the motto of the event seriously

“Make History” was the motto for the 19th edition of the FINA World Championships, and the athletes certainly grew up to it. The event saw three world records, four championship records and two European records beaten in the Duna Arena, while another one of the latter records was equalled.

Kristof Milak broke his own world record in the men’s 200m butterfly. The Hungarian athlete won with 1:50.34 seconds. He was followed by Italian swimmer Thomas Ceccon in the men’s 100m backstroke (3:27.51) and the Australian team (Jack Cartwright, Kyle Chalmers, Madison Wilson, Mollie O’Callaghan) in the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay (3:19.38).

Katie Ledecky from the USA also set a record by claiming the gold medal in the women’s 800m freestyle for the fifth time in a row. She won the event for the eighth time overall at the  FINA World Championships and the Olympics, a streak matched by her compatriot Michael Phelps in the men’s 200m butterfly and Katinka Hosszu in the women’s 400m IM. Ledecky’s championship record time of 3:58.15 was just the icing on the cake.

The American team (Claire Weinstein, Leah Smith, Katie Ledecky, Bella Sims, 7:41.45) in the women’s 4×200 freestyle relay, Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri (men’s 1500m freestyle, 14:32.80) and France’s Leon Marchand (men’s 400m medley, 4:04.28) added world championship records to their name as well. The latter two also bettered the European records.

The Italy men’s 4x100m medley relay team had something to be proud of as well. The quartet of Thomas Ceccon, Nicolo Martinenghi, Federico Burdisso, Alessandro Miressi became world champions in the Duna Arena with a time of 3:27.51, matching a new European record in the process.

The water polo players did not hold back either. In the women’s event, the silver medallist hosts won by the largest margin, 35-4 against Colombia, while the eventual world champion Spain men’s national team defeated South Africa 28-2. Both outstanding results were recorded during the group games.

The men’s final demonstrated the sentiment that the 19th FINA World Championships was an event we couldn’t get enough of as Italy rallied back to force a sudden-death penalty shoot to cap the entire event.

While the Spanish men added their third world title to their tally with their 15-14 victory (adding to previous titles from Perth 1998 and Fukuoka 2001), the USA women won their fourth consecutive FINA World Championship and record-extending seventh world title to their all-time total.

In open water swimming, Ana Marcela Cunha joins the club of swimmers who have won the most world titles at the same individual event with her victory in the Women’s 25km (5 times in total: 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2022) as the Brazilian became the first in history to do it in open water, joining her aforementioned 5x club members from the pool: Phelps, Hosszu and Ledecky.

Feeding the athletes and officials at the competition venues racked up some notable numbers as well, including 11,000 bananas, 25,000 sandwiches and 50,000 cups of coffee. History-making indeed!