Korean Park upstages Phelps and Manaudou

Teenager Park Tae-Hwan upset Australia's freestyle king Grant Hackett before upstaging the great Michael Phelps and Laure Manaudou on the first night of swimming at the world championships yesterday.

The 17-year-old Park flashed home from fourth to first on the final lap to win the men's 400 metres freestyle final in three minutes 44.30 seconds, becoming the first South Korean to capture a world title.

"I did not expect to win the gold medal here," Park told reporters. "When I saw my name on the screen I forgot how I was feeling."

Oussama Mellouli of Tunisia was second while Hackett faded over the final 100m to finish third after winning the title in Montreal two years ago.

"After this morning I felt awful and I was questioning what I was going to swim, but I gave it my best shot," Hackett said.

Park's stunning victory overshadowed the performances of Phelps and Manaudou, who made the perfect start to their separate quests to win an unprecedented eight golds.

Phelps sparked the US relay team to a comfortable win in the 4x100m freestyle while Frenchwoman Manaudou led all the way to successfully retain her 400m freestyle title.

Manaudou's time of 4:02.61 was the second fastest in history and 0.48 seconds outside the world record of 4:02.13 she set in Budapest last year.

The 20-year-old had originally planned to tackle nine races but withdrew from the 200m medley heats yesterday morning to concentrate on her favourite events.

"It's not over, it's just the start. No one can afford to lose momentum after one result," said Manaudou.

Phelps teamed up with Neil Walker, Cullen Jones and Jason Lezak to win the men's relay in a combined time of 3:12.72, 0.26 outside the world record the US set in Canada last year. Italy were second and France third.

Australia won the women's 4x100m freestyle relay final with a stirring victory over the US and the the Netherlands. World record holders Germany finished fourth.

Germany's Britta Kamrau-Corestein kept her nerve to win gold in the women's 25km open water race yesterday. The 27-year-old held a four-minute lead when the race was suspended after 12.5km on Saturday due to severe weather.

The race resumed yesterday and Kamrau-Corestein clung on to win in five hours 37.11 minutes, ahead of Kalyn Keller of the US and Russia's Ksenia Popova.

Russia's Yury Kudinov clinched gold in the men's marathon, holding off a charge from Italy's Marco Formentini with victory in five hours 16.45 minutes. Egypt's Mohamed Meiz Zanaty won the bronze.

Meanwhile, China's stranglehold on the diving competitions at the championships was finally ended yesterday when Russia's Gleb Galperin won the men's 10m platform title.