Thorpe sets new record

Australia's Ian Thorpe began his bid for a record seven gold medals at the Commonwealth Games in sensational style last night by breaking his own world record for the men's 400 metres freestyle.

Olympic champion Thorpe clocked three minutes 40.08 seconds to beat his previous best of 3:40.17 which he swam in the Japanese city of Fukuoka in July last year on his way to an unprecedented six world championship golds.

The Australian teenager retained the title he won in Kuala Lumpur in 1998, beating his compatriot and rival Grant Hackett in the process in the opening day of action in the pool.

"I am pretty happy with that," Thorpe said. "I was pretty relaxed and able to swim a good time."

Thorpe is the most high-profile competitor at the Games which run until Sunday. Hackett took the silver medal in 3:43.48 while Scotland's Graeme Smith won the bronze in 3:49.40.

Thorpe duelled with Hackett for the first half of the race and then left his team-mate for dead.

The 19-year-old Australian, who had swum with superb controlled ease in the morning's heats, was almost a full second inside his world record split 100 metres from home.

But, even though he did not match the blistering finish he produced in Fukuoka, he still beat Hackett by around five metres at the touch.

Hackett, world and Olympic 1,500 metres freestyle champion, had sounded a challenge to Thorpe's supremacy when he broke his own 400 freestyle short-course world record in Sydney two weeks ago.

But he had to settle for second as he did at the last Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur in 1998 and the world championships of that year when a 15-year-old Thorpe pounded past him at the death to become the youngest men's world champion.

"The crowd and the atmosphere generated made it easier," Thorpe said.

Thorpe won four gold medals at the 1998 Games and would surpass fellow Australian swimmer Susie O'Neill's Commonwealth record aggregate of 10 if he added a further seven in Manchester.

England's Zoe Baker broke the women's 50 metres breaststroke world record when she clocked 30.57 seconds in the semi-finals at the Commonwealth Games, also last night.

Baker beat the previous mark of 30.83 set by South Africa's Penny Heyns in Sydney in August 1999.

Freeman returns

Olympic champion Cathy Freeman made an emotional return to competition at the Commonwealth Games yesterday.

Competing for the first time since her husband was diagnosed with cancer, Freeman helped the Australian women's 4x400 metres relay team through to today's final with second place behind Jamaica in the first of two semi-finals.