Germany’s Paul Biedermann won gold in the men’s 400m Freestyle at the World Championships in Rome in a time of 3mins 40.07secs, one hundredth of a second inside Ian Thorpe’s seven-year-old record, writes RTÉ Sport’s John Kenny.
And Italy’s Federica Pellegrini won the women’s 400m, also under world record time, to delight the partisan home crowd.
Elsewhere, the Dutch won the women’s 4X100m freestyle relay again in world record time, while Germany’s Britta Steffan broke the individual time for the 100m freestyle in the opening leg, in a time of 52.22 seconds.
Earlier in the evening, Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom won her semi-final of the 100m Butterfly in 56.44 seconds, 0.27secs inside the previous world’s best.
Arina Kukors of the US destroyed the women’s 200m Individual Medley time by almost one and a half seconds in her semi-final.
The records come after FINAs decision to allow the new generation 100 per cent polyurethane swim suits to be used at the Roman meeting.
