Liu's delight at worlds 200m fly gold

China's Liu Zige swims in the women's 200m butterfly final during the World Swimming Championships at the Sant Jordi arena in Barcelona, August 1, 2013. [Photo/Agencies]

China's world record-holder Liu Zige was delighted to take women's 200m butterfly gold at swimming's world championships on Thursday after holding off Spain's Mireia Belmonte in a tight final.

Liu, the 2008 Olympic champion in Beijing, clocked 2mins 04.59secs in Barcelona with Belmonte just 0.19s back and Hungary's Katinka Hosszu exactly a second adrift in third.

There was disappointment for Olympic champion Jiao Liuyang of China who finished sixth.

Liu led for most of the race and held off the strong challenge of home favorite Belmonte, the Olympic silver medallist, who had briefly threatened to overtake her in the final lap with the crowd roaring her on.

Belmonte attacked Liu's lead in the third length, but the new world champion dug deep in the last fifty metres to claim gold.

"I am delighted to win. I had some injury problems this year and to come back from them like this is great," beamed the 24-year-old who completed the set after silver at the 2009 world championships and bronze two years ago in Shanghai.

The Chinese said she will take a break from training now to give her body a chance to recover.

"At the end of every big competition I have some muscular problems so I had to take time off to see a specialist before I can go back into my training programme," she said.

Hosszu, who won gold in Monday's 200m individual medley final, was happy with her bronze.

"After winning the 200 IM, I am definitely happy with another medal," said the 24-year-old, who moved back to Hungary from the USA after the London 2012 Olympics.

"After the first day, anything more is a bonus.

"My whole preparation has been a little bit different, I moved back to Hungary to be able to represent my country better.

"I changed my coach and we have been doing a lot more races so the hard work definitely paid off."

Special coverage: FINA World Championships 2013