Australia stunned the US in the men’s 4x100m relay yesterday, ending a run of three straight wins and handing Michael Phelps a slow start to his last world championships.
James Magnussen had the better of Phelps in the first leg and Australia’s Matthew Targett, Matthew Abood and Eamon Sullivan held off France to finish it in 3 minutes, 11.00 seconds, relegating Olympic champions the US to third.
It was a resounding finish to the first day of pool competition after China sealed the first 10-title diving sweep and South Korea’s Park Tae-hwan won his 400m freestyle duel with Chinese ace Sun Yang.
Photo: Reuters
The Netherlands successfully defended their women’s 4x100m crown and Italy’s Federica Pellegrini sealed her second successive 400m freestyle world title, but it was Australia, gunning to improve on their disappointing performance in Rome in 2009, who stole the show and gave 14-time Olympic gold medalist Phelps a bitter start to his final year in the sport.
“It’s tough,” said Phelps, who will retire after the London Olympics.
Australia were off to a flyer with Magnussen and maintained their narrow lead throughout, while Garrett Weber-Gale, Jason Lezak and Nathan Adrian of the US could not get them out of third.
Phelps, who has 22 world titles, also suffered his first defeat in the race at a major event since 2005. The US also won world gold in 2007 and 2009, and at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
Earlier, Shanghai’s purpose-built Oriental Sports Center witnessed the final act in China’s magnificent 10-out-of-10 diving performance, which put the seal on a decade of dominance.
Qiu Bo epitomized China’s diving mastery as he collected 585.45 points in the men’s 10m platform final, more than 40 ahead of David Boudia of the US, with Germany’s Sascha Klein taking bronze.
There was to be no fairytale for British defending champion Tom Daley, 17, who was competing despite the death of his father from cancer in May and finished fifth.
In the evening’s first swimming final, Olympic champion Park sneaked down the outside lane almost unnoticed to win his hotly anticipated 400m freestyle shootout with Sun, the quickest man this year.
Park had his nose in front early on and finished nearly a length ahead of Sun, 19, touching in 3 minutes, 42.04 seconds. Defending champion Paul Biedermann of Germany was relegated to bronze.
World and Olympic champions the Netherlands left it late in the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay before pipping the US when anchor Femke Heemskerk overtook Dana Vollmer of the US with just 25m to go. Germany took bronze.
Pellegrini won the women’s 400m freestyle in 4 minutes, 1.97 seconds, beating Olympic champion Rebecca Adlington into second spot, with France’s Camille Muffat third.
Earlier, dope-row sprinter Cesar Cielo pleaded with his critics to leave him alone as he topped the semi-final times in the 50m butterfly.
The Brazilian insisted he was just “here to swim” as storm clouds grew over his all-clear for Shanghai, despite a failed drugs test.
“I don’t know what else they want from me,” Cielo said, after Phelps and Lezak voiced disquiet at this week’s controversial decision. “I’m a swimmer, I’m here to swim. There’s nothing else I can do.”
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