The event was moved to London after Malaysia refused to let Israelis compete.
Mallar, who has cerebral palsy, won the gold medal in the men’s 400m freestyle. He won the race with a time of 4:33.64, beating the old world record by 6 seconds, according to the Israeli Embassy in London. The previous record was set in the 2012 Paralympics by Josef Craig.
His win qualifies him to compete in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.
Originally, the 2019 World Para Swimming Championships were set to begin in July in Malaysia but were then rescheduled after it announced Israeli athletes were not allowed to participate.
The International Paralympics Committee (IPC) decided to choose a new country to host the competition back in January following the announcement.
The IPC president, Andrew Parsons, said, “When a host country excludes athletes from a particular nation, for political reasons, then we have absolutely no alternative but to look for a new championships host.”
London was then chosen to host the championship instead.