BEIJING // Five world records fell in the pool at the Water Cube yesterday, with Michael Phelps winning his second gold of the Games. Phelps and his teammates set a world mark in winning the 4x100 freestyle relay, barely beating France in 3mins 08.24secs. In the first leg of the race, Eamon Sullivan of Australia broke the individual 100 world record in 47.24, beating the previous mark of 47.50.
"You could tell I was pretty excited," said Phelps, who is trying to win eight golds here. "I lost my voice and I was definitely pretty emotional out there." Kosuke Kitajima of Japan defended his 100-metre breaststroke title in a record time of 58.91, and Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe shaved two-tenths of a second off the 100m backstroke record to win her semifinal in 58.77. In evening races, Italy's Federica Pellegrini won her 200-metre freestyle heat in a world record 1-55.45, beating the March 2007 mark of 1-55.52 set by Laure Manadou of France.
Phelps's attempt at breaking Mark Spitz's record of seven golds in a single Games appeared doomed when France took the lead of the relay at the 250m mark. They were 4.03secs under world-record pace at 350m before Jason Lezak, the oldest American male swimmer at 32, rallied over the closing strokes. Nearly a body length behind Alain Bernard at the final turn, he overtook the Frenchman at the wall by a fingertip.
The US team shattered the world record of 3-12.23 they set in preliminaries just a day earlier. Australia won bronze in 3-09.91. Phelps, who swam the first leg, thrust both arms toward the roof after Lezak's incredible finish. "I was going nuts. As soon as [Lezak] came off that last wall, I started going crazy," he said. Phelps also advanced to today's 200m freestyle final where he will go for gold number three.
He qualified fourth-fastest in his semi-final in 1-46.28, a day after he shattered the 400 individual medley world record to win his first gold. Coventry broke the record of 58.97 set by Natalie Coughlin at last month's US trials. The two are the fastest going into today's final. In the men's 100m breaststroke, Kitajima rallied from third after 50 metres to break the 59.13 world record set by Brendan Hansen of the US two years ago. Libby Trickett captured her first Olympic gold in the women's 100m butterfly in 56.73, just 0.12 off the world record, and Britain's Rebecca Adlington overhauled Katie Hoff of the US in the final metres to win the 400 freestyle in 4-03.22.
Two Chinese Olympic debutants dived to the host nation's second synchronised gold, overcoming an adolescent growth spurt that their mentors feared could sink their medal chances. The teenagers Lin Yue and Huo Liang, world champions in the 10 metre platform synchronised event, shrugged off the pressure from a home crowd to take the lead from the first round. They never relinquished it, winning what they made appear an almost effortless victory. However, China's diving team leader Zhou Jihong said she had been fretting until the last minute.
"Winning this gold is not easy for us," she said. "Lin has grown more than 10cm and that affects our training a lot. The coaches, doctors and researchers of our team are all worried about this. "Lin's condition has not been good until the last two weeks of our training camp." Lin, 17, is listed as 1.57m tall in Olympic data, although it is not clear if he was measured before or after the growth spurt that so worried his coaches.
His partner Huo is shorter, coming in at just 1.55m and might have welcomed a little extra height. He has joked that as a child he was considered too short to dive, but winning the gold should silence critics. "I'm a little short and that may affect my execution in the air, but it will be OK if I pay attention to it," he joked. China have been a powerful force in men's synchronised 10 metre platform since it was introduced at the Sydney Olympics. They won silver that year and took gold in Athens in 2004.
* Agencies