American Ryan Lochte bagged his second gold medal of the world short course swimming championships yesterday as two new world records were set on the second night of competition.

Lochte, 26, was first to get in on the action, claiming his second title, but more importantly also the first individual world record of 2010.

He sped to victory in the 400m individual medley in 3min 55.50sec, slicing close to two seconds off the previous mark set by Laszlo Cseh of Hungary in December last year.

Lochte was then also involved in the second record-breaking race of the night, but had to settle for the silver with his team-mates in the 4x200m freestyle relay.

The Americans were neck and neck with the Russian quartet of Nikita Lobintsev, Danila Izotov, Evgeny Lagunov and Alexander Sukhorukov, but it was the Russians who took the gold in a world record time of 6:49.04.

The American team of Peter Vanderkaay, Lochte, Garrett Weber-Gale and Richard Berens, also dipped under the previous world mark of 6:51.05, set by Canada in August last year, taking silver in 6:49.58. France were third in 6:53.05.

In the 100m backstroke, it was Russia’s European champion Stanislav Donets who claimed gold in a championship record time of 49.07 seconds, with Camille Lacourt of France taking silver in 49.80 and Aschwin Wildeboer Faber of Spain bronze in 50.04.

South African world record holder Cameron van der Burgh went one better than his silver in Manchester two years ago to take gold in the 100m breaststroke in another championship record of 56.80.

Italy’s Fabio Scozzoli was second in 57.13 with Brazil’s Felipe Silva taking the bronze in 57.39.