SINGAPORE — The race to the top of the medal table at the FINA World Junior Swimming Championships was finally won by Australia last night, with the pre-event favourite fending off their rivals to claim top spot for the second consecutive time as they ended the fifth edition of the meet with a total of nine gold, seven silver and three bronze medals.

They were closely followed by Russia and the United States, who clinched seven and six gold medals respectively after six days of competition at the OCBC Aquatic Centre.

Australia made the perfect start to the final day of the meet when Kyle Chalmers secured the gold in the men’s 100m freestyle with a time of 48.47s. United States’ Maxime Rooney (48.87s) and Brazil’s Felipe Souza (49.30s) finished in second and third.

While it proved to be Australia’s only gold medal of the evening, neither the US nor Russia were able to dislodge them at the top of the leaderboard, and Kyle admitted it was a relief to retain their status as the top nation at the championships.

“We topped the medal tally at the previous edition in Dubai with 10 gold medals so it’s awesome that we were able to back it up here as well,” said Kyle, 17. “There were a bit of nerves and pressure because we were top last time but we kept the faith and belief that we could do it again this time round. We brought a solid team here who prepared really well for this meet so we’re pleased to have got our rewards.”

The Australians may have topped the medal tally, but it was Russia who ended the night with a bang as they set new world junior records en route to gold in the meet’s last two events: the men’s and women’s 4x100m medley relay.

The quartet of Roman Larin, Anton Chupkov, Daniil Pakhomov and Vladislav Kozlov first set a new world junior mark in the men’s event after touching the wall first in a time of 3:36.44. The Americans clocked a time of 3:37.51 to secure silver, while Australia (3:40.21) settled for bronze.

The Russian men’s stunning performance was followed up by their female counterparts, who posted a time of 4:01.05 to finish first in the women’s 4x100m medley, with Australia (4:02.42) and Japan (4:03.10) placing second and third.

Up-and-coming Russian swimmer Anton, who was the joint-top gold medallist at the meet — alongside Turkey’s Viktoria Gunes — with four titles was delighted with the team’s performance. “It was a fantastic tournament overall for us and we are very happy to have ended on a high,” said Anton. “We learnt a lot from this whole competition and we are looking forward to improving our timings even more.”

A total of 17 world junior records were broken across 15 events this year, with three of them occurring during last night’s races.

Among those who set a new world junior mark was Viktoria, who swam 2:19.64 in the women’s 200m breaststroke to secure her fourth gold medal of the meet and complete a sweep of the breaststroke events.

“I honestly don’t know how I managed to achieve this result,” said Viktoria. I’ve been trying to reach 2:22:00 but haven’t managed to do it before. My coach always told me that I can do it, but there was something in my mind blocking me from doing so. Now that I’ve done it, I have the confidence and the belief to medal at the Olympics next year.”

A total of 11 gold medals were handed out last night at the OCBC Aquatic Centre. Japan’s Rikako Ikee set a new championship record time of 58.28s to win the women’s 100m butterfly, while her compatriot Nao Horomura also took home the top prize in the men’s 200m butterfly.

There was also good news in the Singapore camp, as the men’s 4x100m medley quarter of Francis Fong, Samuel Khoo, Dylan Koo, Darren Lim clocked a new national under-17 record time of 3:47.36 to become the first athletes from Singapore to make the finals of the world juniors. They eventually finished eighth in 3:47.40.