BARCELONA, Spain, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- Ryan Lochte showed that he is far from a spent force when he powered his way to victory in the men's 200 meter individual medley at the world swimming championships in Barcelona.

Lochte went one better than his silver medal from the event in London 2012, finishing ahead of Kosuke Hagino and Brazilian, Thiago Pereira in a time of 1.54.98. The man so often spoken of as the successor to Michael Phelps, had suffered a disappointing week in the pool as he formed part of the 4x100 meters freestyle team beaten into second place by France and then fished a surprising fourth in the 200 meters freestyle final.

He had even struggled in the heats of the 200 meter medley on Wednesday morning before showing something approaching his best form in the semi-final a few hours later.

In the final he was in no mood to waste possibly his best gold medal chance of the meet and got a positive start to lead at the end of the 50 meters butterfly lap. Brazil's Thiago Pereira threatened when he took the lead on the backstroke, but Lochte powered back in front on the breast-stroke and was not going to be caught in the freestyle, finishing ahead of Hagino.