Luca Urlando is 200 Fly World Champ, But Marchand, Milak and Others Looming
He supplied the lone glorious moment for the American men at last year’s World Championships, dominating the 200 butterfly final. The medal was the first Luca Urlando has captured at a major international competition and the first in the event by any American since Michael Phelps retired. The win was the highlight of an enormous year that also included an NCAA title in the 200-yard fly and three record-setting swims in the short course event.
Urlando entered 2026 as the king of the event, although he has not competed in several months after withdrawing from the NCAA Championships due to injury. The 1:51.87 he clocked during his world-title run made him the fourth-fastest performer in history and put him within four tenths of the American record. That mark, of course, belongs to Phelps at 1:51.51 from 2009, and Phelps has been atop that list since setting his first world record in the event in 2001. His world mark stood until 2019.
The two other men with quicker times remain active, with one sitting out the World Championships entirely while the other prioritized different events. Hungary’s Kristof Milak remains the fastest swimmer in history. He shocked the world by beating Phelps’ world record at the 2019 World Championships, and three years later, he swam a dazzling time of 1:50.34 in front of a home crowd in Budapest at the 2022 World Championships.
But Milak, now 26, has not competed at the World Championships since. Most recently, he pulled out of the Singapore meet in 2025 after missing extensive training time. He is expected to target the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, and it stands to reason that Milak will aim to be ready when the World Championships return to Budapest in 2027. However, he might be better positioned for success in the 100 fly at this stage of his career.
Leon Marchand — Photo Courtesy: Emily Cameron
That leaves Leon Marchand, who won the 2023 world title in Milak’s absence and then stunned the Hungarian in the Paris Olympic final. Milak led for the first 150 meters of that race before Marchand’s incredible underwater kickout put him on top. Marchand’s time of 1:51.25 made him the second-fastest time in history. That was the front end of a stunning double as Marchand would return to dominate the 200 breaststroke final, becoming the first man to win two Olympic gold medals in swimming in the same day.
For the follow-up at the Singapore World Championships, Marchand opted to focus on the individual medley races, a decision that paid off with another medley sweep and a stunning world record of 1:52.69 in the 200 IM. That form suggests Marchand could have gone at least a second quicker in a butterfly race, which would have been enough to beat Urlando.
Moving forward, the new Olympic schedule for the 2028 Games suggests Marchand will have the opportunity to resume his usual four-event slate and return to the top of the podium in the 200 fly. He did swim as fast as 1:52.57 in December, making him the second-fastest performer in 2025 behind Urlando.
If Milak returns to the event and comes close to his best while Urlando and Marchand remain at or near their peaks, it would require a time under 1:52 to reach the Olympic podium in LA. But surely there will be others involved by the time 2028 rolls around. One obvious candidate is Ilya Kharun, the bronze medalist behind Marchand and Milak in Paris at age 19 while representing Canada. Kharun had an up-and-down 2025, falling to fourth in the 200 fly in Singapore, but he did win a medal in the 100 fly before performing well throughout his junior season at Arizona State University. Kharun is currently in the process of switching his sporting nationality to the United States.
Don’t forget about Poland’s Krzysztof Chmielewski, the silver medalist at the 2023 and 2025 World Championships. Chmielewski, currently in his junior season at USC, closed the gap on Urlando on the last lap of this year’s final, and he ended up clocking 1:52.64 to become the sixth-fastest swimmer in history.
Only five swimmers went under 1:54 in 2025: Urlando, Marchand, Chmielewski, Kharun and Carson Foster, who went 1:53.70 at U.S. Nationals. Foster and third-place American Thomas Heilman both went faster than the 1:54.17 posted by eventual Worlds bronze medalist Harrison Turner of Australia. Swift performances have been few thus far in 2026, with Marchand the only swimmer under 1:54 with his 1:53.08 from April.
Anyone from that group will need another significant jump to have any shot at a top-three finish in a full-strength field. That said, there is no one posing an obvious threat to the world record, an interesting development after a four-year stretch when Milak appeared poised to become the first swimmer to break the 1:50-barrier. Now, the event is one of many in Marchand’s wheelhouse of winning while the presence of Urlando and soon Kharun makes this a rare bright spot for the American men.