The former Dunedin swimmer breezed through the women’s 200m freestyle semifinal in Singapore on Tuesday night, clocking in at 1min 55.52sec.
It was the fourth-best time of her career and just 0.08sec off her New Zealand record set in April 2023.
Fairweather, who now races for North Shore after moving to Auckland earlier this year, finished her heat third behind American Claire Weinstein and Australian Mollie O'Callaghan.
The 21-year-old was the third seed heading into last night’s final, the same event in which she won silver at the world championships last year.
It was a good response from Fairweather, who was earlier denied the chance to defend her 400m freestyle world title — her specialist event — after she was disqualified for moving on the blocks.
Kiwi Lewis Clareburt pushed the entire way in the men’s 200m butterfly semifinal to finish with a personal best of 1min 55.24sec and 10th overall.
"It’s been three years since I clocked that personal best so I’m extremely happy," Clareburt said.
"It obviously would have been great to get into that final, but it gives me confidence moving forward."
He was back in the pool yesterday where he finished second his men’s 200m IM heat in 1min 58.19sec to qualify for the semifinal last night.
Clareburt met French Olympic champion Leon Marchand in his semifinal.
United States great Katie Ledecky collected her sixth world title in the women’s 1500m freestyle, finishing in 15min 26.44sec. It is the second medal of the championships for Ledecky, who now has 22 world titles to her name, having earlier won bronze in the women’s 400m freestyle.
Australian Kaylee McKeown made a dominant return to win gold in a thrilling women’s 100m backstroke final.
She came from behind to beat American Regan Smith in a championship record time of 57.16sec.
McKeown wanted to rediscover her love for the sport after taking time out for mental health reasons post her 100m and 200m backstroke victories at the Paris Olympics. — Additional reporting Reuters
