Olympic champion Liu Xiang made the world 110metres hurdles record his own when he recorded a time of 12.88seconds at Tuesday's IAAF Super Grand Prix meeting in Lausanne.
The 23-year-old lowered the previous record of 12.91secs he shared with Great Britain's Colin Jackson with a turn of speed over the final hurdles.
It was an amazing performance from Liu Xiang, who matched Jackson's 11-year-old mark when he won the gold medal in Athens two years ago.
Liu Xiang was decisively beaten into fourth place in Saturday's Paris Golden League meeting when the American pair of Terrence Trammell and Dominique Arnold took top honours.
However, in Lausanne he pulled away from the duo to slice the biggest margin from the high-hurdles record since Renaldo Nehemiah lowered it by 0.21secs to exactly 13secs in 1979.
Behind him Arnold, who was a close fourth in last summer's World Championships, also bettered the previous mark with a time of 12.90secs, while two-time Olympic silver medallist Trammell matched his personal best of 13.02secs.
Xavier Carter, the latest sprint sensation to emerge from the USA, produced one of the greatest 200m performances with the first four finishers all breaking 20 seconds.
The 20-year-old, on his first European tour, finished in a time of 19.63secs which has only been beaten by the legendary Michael Johnson.
Carter powered through the final 20 metres to finish 0.07secs ahead of team-mate Tyson Gay.
