Thorpe, Phelps set world records

Teenagers Ian Thorpe and Michael Phelps both set world records at the swimming World championships on Tuesday.

Australian Thorpe sliced almost two-and-a-half seconds off his old world record to set a new standard of seven minutes 39.16 seconds to win the 800 metres freestyle final.

Phelps, of the United States, followed Thorpe's lead by breaking his own world record for the 200 metres butterfly, stopping the clock at 1:54.58, a third of a second better than his previous mark.

Russia's Roman Sludnov won the men's 100 metres breaststroke gold as expected, but failed to better the world record he had set 24 hours earlier, while American Haley Cope won the inaugural women's 50 metres backstroke title.

Thorpe, 18, claimed his third gold medal and set his second world record in three days when he won a great duel with fellow Australian Grant Hackett.

Thorpe, who had swum the 200 metres freestyle semifinals less than 20 minutes before he dived in for the 800, cut loose on the last length of the 16-length race to wipe 2.43 seconds off the previous mark of 7:41.59 which he set at the Australian trials in March.

Hackett also went under the old mark but had to settle for silver in 7:40.34 while Britain's Graeme Smith took the bronze in 7:51.12.

Sixteen-year-old Phelps swept along inside world record schedule all the way and denied fellow American and Olympic champion Tom Malchow's challenge to win in one minute 54.58 seconds.

WORLD RECORD

That clipped 0.34 seconds from the 1:54.92 Phelps, then only 15, clocked when he took the world record from Malchow at the U.S. national championships in Austin, Texas in March this year.

Malchow, bronze medallist at the last world championships in Perth in 1998, moved up to silver in 1:55.28 and Russian European champion Anatoly Poliakov came through for the bronze in 1:55.68.

Cope won the inaugural women's 50 metres backstroke title after an extremely tight race in which three-hundredths of a second separated gold and bronze.

Cope swung through the one-length race in 28.51 seconds, with Germany's Antje Buschschulte taking the silver in 28.53 and Cope's American team mate Natalie Coughlin the bronze in 28.54.

Sludnov brought Russia their first pool gold of the championships when he powered home to win his favourite event.

Olympic bronze medallist Sludnov, third at the 50-metre mark behind American Ed Moses and Britain's Darren Mew, accelerated to the front on the second length and touched in 1:00.16, 0.22 outside his world record of 59.94 set 24 hours earlier.

Olympic champion Domenico Fioravanti came through for the silver in 1:00.47 and Olympic silver medallist Ed Moses took the bronze in 1:00.61.