Van den Burgh said that he did not think that all the hype about the controversial high-tech performance-enhancing swimsuits, which are to be banned from next year, was necessary.

'It is a touchy subject, but if you look at the lineup, every single swimmer in my heat was wearing a Jaked or Arena X-Glide so it puts us on even playing fields.

'The suits are all pretty much the same, so I dont really believe that it gives too much of an advantage because everybody was wearing one.'

He added that although he was looking forward to competing next year, when bodysuits are banned, he did not think it was that big an issue. 'Everybody is wearing the same suit at the moment already.

'It is a big hype because it is something new and nobody ever had that in swimming. To give you an example, in running people have spikes or starting blocks and I think they are just trying to bring it over to swimming and enhance the sport with technology.

'A lot of people may not like it because it is something new and people don't like change.

'Critics have been pretty harsh but times and records are meant to be broken.'

He said that some of the records that had been broken in Rome would last a long time. 'It will probably take a long time to get to this level of swimming.

'We raised the bar. It is not that we are going to go down from that, but at the same time, I think when you do get hyped up you can swim just as fast.'

He said that irrespective of whether his world record of 26.67 seconds was going to be broken at some stage, he would have something from the world championships.

'Medals are forever. I can go home and keep my medal forever.'

And until he does return to South Africa, he can just savour the moment and - with a good bottle of wine - look at the gold medal that he won in world record time.