Cavic steals Phelps' thunder

Milorad Cavic made a sensational statement in the world championships 100m butterfly semi-finals yesterday, breaking Michael Phelps's world record and nearly smashing the 50-second barrier.

Now the Serbian takes the upper hand into his grudge match against Phelps, where he'll try to balance the scales after Phelps out-touched him by one one-hundredth of a second in the Beijing Olympic final.

Cavic went out fast en route to winning the second semi-final in 50.01sec to break the world record of 50.22 that Phelps had set at the US Championships on July 9.

"I didn't want to go out so fast, but I had so much energy in my body that I couldn't help it," Cavic said. "I'm capable of swimming under 50, which would be enough to win the gold."

Cavic's was one of six world records on the night, taking the total to a whopping 35 with two days still to go.

Three of the five titles on offer were won in world record times - Aaron Peirsol in the men's 200m backstroke, Britta Steffen in the women's 100m freestyle and the United States in the men's 4x200m freestyle relay.

The only exceptions were the men's and women's 200m breaststroke finals - and the world record had been broken in both a day before.

Women butterfliers delivered another record two-for-one as first Marleen Veldhuis, with a time of 25.28, and then Therese Alshammar in 25.07 lowered the 50m fly mark in the semis.

Peirsol bounced back from his failure to make the 100m back final by crushing his own 200m back world record with a time of 1:51.92.

Until yesterday, Japan's Ryosuke Irie had been the only swimmer to break 1:53, but his 1:52.86 set in Canberra this year was never ratified because he was wearing an unapproved suit.

After his failure in the 100 back, and runner-up 200m finishes at the last worlds and Olympics, Peirsol led virtually all the way as Irie settled for silver in 1:52.51 and defending world champion Ryan Lochte took bronze in 1:53.82.

Germany's Olympic champion Britta Steffen won the women's 100m freestyle, lowering her own world record for the second time at these championships with a time of 52.07sec.

Defending world champion Libby Trickett of Australia led at the turn, but was overtaken by both Steffen and 19-year-old Briton Fran Halsall, who took silver in 52.87 as Trickett made do with bronze in 52.93.

The US team of Phelps, Ricky Berens, David Walters and Lochte shaved one-hundredth of a second off the world record set by America's gold medal-winning 4x200m free relay team in Beijing, lifting the world title in 6:58.55 ahead of Russia (6:59.15) and Australia (7:01.65).

Newly-minted world record-holders Annamay Pierse and Christian Sprenger couldn't translate the achievement into world gold.

A day after lowering the women's 200m breaststroke mark in the semi-finals, Pierse took silver in the final behind Serbia's Nadja Higl, who came through for the victory in 2:21.62 after Olympic champion Rebecca Soni paid the price for a furious first 150 and faded to fourth.

Pierse was second in 2:21.84 - well off her day-old record of 2:20.12 - and Austria's Mirna Jukic was third in 2:21.97.

Hungary's Daniel Gyurta, sixth at the final turn, stormed home to seize the men's 200m breaststroke in 2:07.64, ahead of American Eric Shanteau (2:07.65).

Sprenger, who established a world record of 2:07.31 on Thursday, shared bronze with Giedrius Titenis of Lithuania in 2:07.80.