Jessicah Schipper won the 200m butterfly, then helped Australia's 4x100m medley team to a world record at the Commonwealth Games on Tuesday.
Canada won its first swimming gold in any competition in eight years, while the Australian men's team finished off a below-par campaign by winning the medley relay in a games record.
Schipper won the 200m in two minutes, 06.09 minutes -- nearly two seconds ahead of teammate Felicity Galvez. She then swam the third leg in the relay as Australia lowered its world record by more than a second to 3:56.30.
PHOTO: AFP
Michael Brown broke Canada's gold-medal drought, overhauling Jim Piper in the final length to win the 200m breaststroke in a games record 2:12.23.
On the final night of the swim program at the Melbourne Aquatic Center, there were also wins for Stephanie Rice, South Africa's Roland Schoeman and David Davies, who won Wales first gold of this meet. His sub-15 minute win in the 1,500m was almost 12 seconds clear.
In the last swimming event of the games, Australia's men also earned their frist win in an Olympic event by capturing the 4x100m medley.
First gold
Brown's win was Canada's first swimming gold in a major international event since the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where Mark Versfeld, Joanne Malar and Marianne Limpert won gold.
Canada's Olympic gold medal shut out in swimming dates back to the 1992 games, with Mark Tewkesbury's 100m backstroke.
"It's pretty good to be able to say that I'm the guy with the gold medal around my neck," Brown said. "It's definitely a confidence booster, not only for myself, but the team as well."
Brenton Rickard won silver -- one-hundredth of a second behind -- followed by Australia teammate Piper.
"Those guys go out faster to the 100m and I knew that," Brown said. "But I knew I just had to stick to my game plan and I got my fingernails quicker to the wall than they did."
Rice won the 400m individual medley in a games record 4:41.91. The teenage Australian, at her first major international event, also won the 200m IM here.
"I really came down hard after that," Rice said. "I was having quite a hard time getting motivated for training. But this is a really competitive time and in there with the Americans."
Schoeman also won his second gold, adding the 50m freestyle to the 50m butterfly, despite feeling "under the weather" for the entire meet.
"I think of myself as a jolly person so I came out and was smiling," the South African said. "I knew I was going to have to have a better start [than the semifinal] and fortunately I did."
Schoeman swam 22.03 to edge Canada's Brent Hayden.
Welshman Davies took advantage of the absence two-time Olympic champion Grant Hackett to win the 1,500m. Davies, who finished third behind Hackett at last year's world championships, clocked 14:57. Canada's Andrew Hurd was second in 15:09.44.
All of the women on Australia's record-setting medley team had won events in Melbourne. The Australia team was Sophie Edington, Leisel Jones, Schipper and Lisbeth Lenton. It was Jones' second world record on consecutive nights -- she lowered her own 200m breaststroke world record on Monday.
Jones was the only swimmer on the team that set the previous world mark of 3:57.32 in Athens.
Australia's men of Matthew Welsh, Rickard, Michael Klim and Eamon Sullivan won their medley relay in 3:34.37. Australia's Matthew Cowdrey had won two golds in disability events.
"It took a while, but it came about," said Welsh. "I don't think I've been so emotional about a win. I was almost in tears behind the block."
Klim said he'd been quietly confident.
"People have been writing us off, people who don't have the knowledge or expertise," he said. "We still win medals for our country, and we feel that's a great honor.
"If you don't win gold people feel like you haven't acheived anything and we just wanted to prove that we are fighters and that's what the swim team is all about."
Roundup
Mick Gault became England's most prolific Commonwealth Games medalist with a silver on Tuesday behind Indian shooter Samaresh Jung, who is still on target for eight medals in Melbourne.
Aleks Karapetyan threw down the weights and picked up his son and the Australian flag, wearing it like a cape and holding up the little boy in celebration when he was awarded his gold medal in the 94-kilogram weightlifting division.
Nathan O'Neill was less demonstrative but no less excited when he won the 40km time trial in 48 minutes, 37.29 seconds, giving Australia its ninth cycling gold medal in Melbourne.
Three years ago he was paralyzed with his head in a 'halo' in hospital after breaking his neck in a training accident.
Despite his amazing recovery and seven national championships, he wasn't a guaranteed starter at the Commonwealth Games until local officials won negotiations with his American professional team to get him a release.
"You can win bike races all around the world, but until you get into a situation like this ... in front of a home crowd in a specialist event and the last rider to start, it doesn't get any more pressure-filled than that," he said.
"To be able to pull that off, it's truly an accomplishment, it's a personal achievement for me."
O'Neill said it was a "hit-and-run" mission, but he planned to relax with a beer before flying back to ride for his HealthNet team in California on Friday.
"I'm going to be a little wrung-out when I get back," he said.
Oenone Wood won the women's time trial 37 minutes, 40.87 seconds, 15.2 seconds clear of 1992 Olympic road race champion Kathy Watt, 41, and 2004 Olympic road race gold medalist Sara Carrigan as Australians went 1-2-3.
Sarah Ulmer, the Athens Olympic pursuit winner, withdrew because of an injured lower back.
Karapetyan collected Australia's 46th gold medal with a combined total of 350kg. Before the evening finals on day seven in athletics and swimming, England was next on the medal standings with 18 gold and India was third with 14.
Jung had four of those, firing 650.2 to win the 50m pistol event. He has four gold and a silver at Melbourne with three events still on his program.
Gault, 51, was next with 645.9 for silver, his 14th Commonwealth Games medal.
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