Phelps in seventh heaven
Michael Phelps claimed a record seventh gold medal at the FINA World Championships in Melbourne to stake his claim to swimming immortality.
The 21-year-old American thus eclipsed the record of Australian Ian Thorpe, who had held the previous best of six golds at one World Championships.
It also matches the major games feat of American Mark Spitz, who took seven gold medals at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.
Phelps had earlier been eliminated from contention for another gold when the American team in the 4x100m medley relay were disqualified after Ian Crocker jumped into the water before the changeover was complete.
However, he quickly recovered from that setback to set the new landmark in the 400m medley and smash another world record to boot.
The American came home in four minutes 06.22 seconds – beating his previous record set at the Athens Olympics by more than two seconds – with fellow American Ryan Lochte 3.52secs behind in second and Italy’s Luca Marin a further 0.14secs back in third.
“It’s the last race and I wanted to finish off strong,” Phelps said.
“There is still more work to be done next year (for the Olympics).”
Britain’s David Davies had to settle for bronze in the men’s 1,500 metres freestyle despite being the fastest qualifier yesterday.
The Welshman lost out to Poland’s Mateusz Sawrymowicz (14:45.94) by 5.27seconds while Russian Yury Prilukov took silver 1.35secs behind his eastern European rival.
American Larsen Jensen, the Olympic silver medalist, was fourth behind Davies.
Earlier, Britain’s Liam Tancock collected a second bronze medal in the men’s 50m backstroke.
Tancock, who also collected bronze in the 100m backstroke, was beaten by 0.25 seconds by South African Gerhard Zandberg (24.98secs) with defending champion and world record-holder Thomas Rupprath of Germany taking silver.
American Jessica Hardy took gold in the women’s 50m breaststroke in a time of 30.63secs to edge out Aussie Leisel Jones by 0.07secs and compatriot Tara Kirk in third (31.05secs).
Briton Kate Haywood failed to match her qualifying time of 31.72secs, finishing seventh in 31.82secs.
Libby Lenton of Australia was the champion in the 50m freestyle, finishing ahead of Therese Alshammar of Sweden and Marleen Veldhuis of the Netherlands.
American Katie Hoff set a new world record as she claimed victory in the 400m medley.
Hoff’s winning time of 4:32.89 saw her beat off opposition from second-placed Russian Yana Martynova and third-placed Stephanie Rice of Australia.
Fittingly, Australia collected the final gold of the championships in the men’s 4x100m medley from which the USA were earlier disqualified.
Eamon Sullivan’s freestyle leg made the difference as the Aussie men won their first gold of the event with a time of 3:34.93 ahead of Japan (3:35.16) and Russia (3:35.51).
