MONTREAL, July 30 - Ian Crocker demolished the world record to win the 100
metres butterfly at the world swimming championships on Saturday and ruin
Michael Phelps's dream of winning six gold medals.
Crocker stormed through two laps of the Montreal pool in 50.40 seconds to
wipe 0.36 off the previous mark which he set at last year's U.S. Olympic trials
at Long Beach, California, and retain the world title he won at Barcelona in
2003.
Phelps was unable to match Crocker's incredible speed and had to settle for
second place in 51.65 while Ukraine's Andriy Serdinov was third in 52.08 on the
penultimate day of the championships.
Crocker's win avenged his gut-wrenching loss to Phelps in last year's Olympic
final when he led all the way but misjudged his touch on the wall allowing
Phelps to sneak through.
It also destroyed Phelps's bid to match Ian Thorpe's record of six gold
medals at a single world championship. Phelps has won four golds and a silver in
Montreal.
"When racing against Michael I know I need a world record to beat him,"
Crocker said. My goal was to break the world record but I didn't think it would
be by that much."
Leisel Jones collected her third gold medal as part of the Australian team
that won the women's 4x100m medley relay while her 17-year-old compatriot Danni
Miatke won her first world title with an upset win over Swedish world record
holder Anna-Karin Kammerling in the 50m butterfly final.
South African sprinter Roland Schoeman, Zimbabwean backstroker Kirsty
Coventry and American long-distance swimmer Kate Ziegler all won their second
gold medals of the championship.
Schoeman powered his way down the pool in 21.69 to win the 50m freestyle
splash and dash with the second fastest time in history, just 0.05 outside
Alexander Popov's world record.
Duje Draganja of Croatia finished second in 21.89 while Bartosz Kizierowski
of Poland was third in 21.94 but neither could keep up with Schoeman, who set a
world record to win the 50m butterfly earlier this week and was second in the
100m freestyle final.
Coventry broke her own African record to add the 200m backstroke title to her
earlier win in the 100m, leading all the way to reach the finish wall in
2:08.52. American Margaret Hoelzer finished second in 2:09.94 while Japan's
Reiko Nakamura was third in 2:10.41.
Ziegler, 17, also produced a bold front-running display to win the 800m
freestyle in 8:25.31 following her runaway victory in the 1500m won earlier this
week.
Canada's Brittany Reimer finished second in 8:27.59 while Japan's Olympic
champion Ai Shibata was third in 8:27.86.
Jones, who the 100m-200m breaststroke double earlier in the week, teamed up
with Sophie Edington, Jessicah Schipper and Libby Lenton to win the medley relay
for Australia in a combined time of 3:57.47, just 0.15 outside the world record
Australia set at last year's Athens Olympics.
The U.S. finished second in 3:59.92 after leading for the first 150m while
Germany were third in 4:02.51.