Golden Lochte gives US relay record

Ryan Lochte wrote another golden chapter in his memorable world championships yesterday as he pushed the USA to a record fourth straight 4x200m freestyle win and claimed his third individual title.

The American team were lagging after out-of-sorts Michael Phelps’ lead-off leg but Lochte demonstrated the form which brought him the individual 200m freestyle title as he overtook France’s Fabien Gilot on the penultimate turn.

Lochte’s efforts helped the United States, who timed 7min 2.67sec to finish ahead of France and China, become the first team to win the event four times in a row, outstripping Australia’s treble between 1998 and 2003.

It capped another bravura night for the 26-year-old, who has emerged from Phelps’s shadow with a world record in the 200m individual medley and doubled his personal tally to four gold medals yesterday.

The Olympic champion, whose medley record on Thursday was the first since high-tech swimsuits were banned last year, also led from start to finish in the 200m backstroke to reclaim the title he won in 2007.

Lochte timed 1min 52.96sec ahead of Japan’s Ryosuke Irie and Tyler Clary of the United States.

Meanwhile, Olympic champion Rebecca Soni stretched the United States’ lead at the top of the medals table when she won the 200m breast-stroke, adding to her 100m breaststroke title won earlier in Shanghai.

And Hungary’s Daniel Gyurta won an exciting duel with four-time Olympic champion Kosuke Kitajima of Japan to retain his 200m breaststroke crown.

Gyurta, who came off second best to Kitajima in the 2004 Olympic final, overtook the ‘Frog King’ over the last 50 metres to claim gold in 2:08.41. Germany’s Christian vom Lehn was third.

Also yesterday, the championships witnessed only their third ever dead-heat final – and the second this week – as Aliaksandra Herasimenia, of Belarus, and Denmark’s Jeanette Ottesen both finished the women’s 100m freestyle in 53.45.

The rare event happened after Camille Lacourt and Jeremy Stravius became France’s first male world champions with identical times in the 100m backstroke on Tuesday.

Before Shanghai, only one world final had been decided by a dead heat, when Italy’s Filippo Magnini and Canadian Brent Hayden shared the 100m freestyle title in 2007.

Dutch swimmer Ranomi Kromowidjojo was awarded bronze and uncannily, there was another dead heat for fourth place between Britain’s Francesca Halsall and Femke Heemskerk of the Netherlands, who both clocked 53.72.

Chetcuti sets national mark

Andrew Chetcuti was again at his best yesterday when he improved his own national record in the 50 metres freestyle during the world championships.

The Maltese swimmer was competing in heat 10 of the 16-strong heats comprising 116 swimmers when clocking 23.65 seconds to clip two hundredths of a second off his own national limit he set last month at the Liechtenstein GSSE. He finished 43rd overall.

Nicola Muscat will make her debut today in the heats of the 50m freestyle.

Waterpolo: Women’s final – Greece vs China 9-8. Bronze medal play-off – Russia vs Italy 8-7