1991 – PERTH

The United States returned to the top of the medal table, open water swimming and the 1m event in diving debuted in the competition programme, Krisztina Egerszegi won the first and second World Championships gold medal and the Yugoslavian men’s water polo team retained their world title. All happened in Perth, at the 6th FINA World Championships.

In 1991 Perth and Australia started a ‘World Championships series’ as the Event returned to the city in just seven years’ time, while another location down-under – Melbourne – hosted the FINA World Championships in 2007.

Altogether 60 nations competed in Perth – the previous record (52) happened in Guayaquil, Ecuador, in 1982.

The US delegation finished on top of the medal table with 17 gold, 11 silver and 6 bronze medals. China finished in second with 8 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze, while Hungary was the third with their 5 gold, and 2-2 silver and bronze medals. Nineteen nations earned at least one medal in Perth.

Only the US delegation won more World titles this time in swimming – the Hungarian national team collected five gold, two silver and one bronze in Perth.

Tamás Darnyi has defended his world title in the 200 and 400m individual medley with a world record. The third Hungarian gold went to Norbert Rózsa who won the 100 breaststroke final.

Among the women, Krisztina Egerszegi won both the 100 and the 200m backstroke finals – these are the only two World titles the Hungarian legend has ever won.

In the ‘post-Greg Louganis’ era in diving, the Chinese dominance increased in Perth, however they won only one out of the three male events, the 10m platform, by Sun Shuwei (his compatriot, Xiong Ni finished second). A year later he became Olympic champion in Barcelona and wrote history once again by winning the 10m synchronised platform event in Perth in 1998.

All female events went to the Chinese ladies at the 6th FINA World Championships. The legendary diver Gao Min triumphed on 1m and 3m, while Fu Minxia finished first in the 10m event.

Open water swimming made its World Championships debut in Perth – back then with the classical 25km races only. The home team won one gold medal by Shelley Taylor-Smith. Among the men, American Chad Hundeby triumphed memorably in front of Italian and Australian rivals.

While five years earlier in Madrid Canada won all three synchro events, in Perth the Americans were better, Canada only triumphed in the solo event (Sylvie Fréchette).

The defending men’s champion Yugoslavia was defeated in Perth only once, by the Soviet Union in the group phase. Later they beat the Americans in the semi-final and triumphed over Spain by one goal (8-7) in the final, thus defending their World title. The bronze medal went to Hungary.

The Netherlands became World champions without a single game lost in the women’s tournament (with the participation if nine teams). In the final, the Dutch squad beat Canada by seven goals (13-6).