Michael Phelps capped an historic world championships with his seventh gold medal yesterday and another world record as Grant Hackett lost a 1500m freestyle race for the first time in 11 years.
The irrepressible American sliced more than two seconds off his own 400m individual medley world record to hit the wall in 4:06.22 and become the only swimmer to win seven golds at a single world championship.
Teammate Ryan Lochte took the silver in 4:09.74 and Luca Marin of Italy won the bronze in 4:09.88.
PHOTO: EPA
Fellow American Katie Hoff shattered a seven-year-old record in the women's 400m medley, touching in 4:32.89 ahead of Russia's Yana Martynova and Australian Stephanie Rice.
In total, 14 world records tumbled in Melbourne.
But Phelps' quest for eight gold medals was cruelly ended when the US 4x100m medley relay team was disqualified in the heats after Ian Crocker was judged to have left the blocks early.
PHOTO: AFP
"Training wise and racing wise, this is probably the best moment I've had," Phelps said, who has set four individual world marks here and one with the freestyle relay team.
"I didn't expect to be two seconds under the world record. I saw at 150m I was 0.1 under the record. It's the last race and I wanted to finish off strong," he said.
His medal tally surpassed the six Ian Thorpe won at the 2001 event in Japan to make Phelps the most decorated swimmer in championship history with 20 medals, taking the mantle from Hackett who has 18.
Australia's Libby Lenton was also firing, grabbing her fifth gold of the meet, the most ever by an Australian woman, by touching first in the 50m freestyle in 24.53.
Sweden's Therese Alshammar was second and Dutchwoman Marleen Veldhuis third.
With the eight days of swimming wrapped up, the US easily topped the medal table with 20 gold to Australia's nine as they start the countdown to the Beijing Olympics.
An underprepared Hackett handed his 1500m crown to Poland's Mateusz Sawrymowicz, adding to his losses in the 400m and 800m. It prevented the Australian becoming the only swimmer to win five titles in the same event.
Sawrymowicz powered home in 14:45.94 ahead of Russia's Yury Prilukov (14:47.29) and David Davies of Britain (14:51.21) with Hackett 14 seconds adrift.
Hackett though insisted he was not finished and would use the demoralizing experience to fire him up for the Olympics.
Australia's Liesel Jones failed in her attempt to win a unique 50-100-200m breaststroke treble, finishing second to America's Jessica Hardy (30.63) over the fast and furious 50 sprint. Another American, Tara Kirk, came third.
South Africa got its second gold of the meet through Gerhard Zandberg who won the men's 50m backstroke in 24.98 ahead of world record holder Thomas Rupprath of Germany (25.20) and Liam Tancock of Britain (25.23.)
With the US out of the men's medley relay final for the first time in championship history, Australia capitalized to win gold in 3:34.93 ahead of Japan and Russia.
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