RECORD BREAKER SPRENGER BEATEN IN THRILLER
August 1: Breaststroker Christian Sprenger missed out on gold but leaves Rome with a bronze medal, a world record and the belief that he can compete with the very best after a thrilling 200m final at the 13th FINA World Championship in Rome. DAVID MOASE reports ...
His bronze was one of three won by Australia today in a finals session that included five world records and some great racing.
No race was more exciting than the 200m breaststroke final where Sprenger and team mate Brenton Rickard had hoped to turn the world championship final into a de facto national championship and for the first 150 metres that was how it looked.
The man who set the world record in yesterday's semi-final led the field into the first turn and then Rickard, the 100m champion, surged ahead to lead after 100m in a time nearly half a second under Sprenger's record.
Rickard still led narrowly at the 150m turn but by then American Eric Shanteau was looming as a big danger to the Australians.
As Rickard's effort faded in the final lap, Shanteau took the lead and looked a winner before Sprenger issued one last challenge.
While many eyes were on that battle, two other swimmers, Hungary's Daniel Gyurta and Lithuania's Giedrius Titenis, were also unleashing big finishes.
In a desperate race to the wall, Gyurta, who had shown in the semi-finals that he was a fast finisher, was first to touch in 2:07.65, outside Sprenger's world record but his 0.01 margin ahead of the unlucky Shanteau was all that mattered on the day.
Sprenger and Titenis dead-heated for bronze in 2:07.80, while Rickard finished fifth.
STEFFEN PROVES A BRIT TOO GOOD FOR LIBBY
Germany's Britta Steffen ended any debate about who is the world's best female 100m swimmer by dominating today's final in world record time.
Arch rival Libby Trickett led early but the Australian couldn't match Steffen's speed in the second 50m and eventually faded and was relegated to third place by Great Britain's Fran Halsall.
Well aware of Steffen's finishing speed, Trickett, the defending champion, knew she had to establish an early lead and then try to hold on.
She led at the turn but the 0.23 margin never seemed as if it would be enough.
Steffen, in her slick Adidas Hydrofoil suit, drew level soon after turning and pulled away at such speed that she almost became the first swimmer to break 52 seconds for the 100m. She stopped the clock at 52:07.
Halsall proved she is a swimmer on the rise, clocking a personal best 52.87, 0.06 ahead of Trickett.
The day had not started particularly well for Trickett either with the New South Wales Institute of Sport star eliminated in the heats of the 50m butterfly.
She was 17th fastest - equal with American veteran Dara Torres - and one place out of the semi-finals.
Telstra Dolphins team mate Marieke Guehrer showed much better form and goes into tomorrow's butterfly final as the fourth fastest qualifier.
Trickett's NSWIS training partner Therese Alshammar of Sweden qualified fastest with a world record 25.07 in the second semi-final. Holland's Marleen Veldhuis also set a world record in the first semi-final only to see it beaten minutes later by Alshammar.
RELAY UNCOVERS A FUTURE STAR
A breakthrough performance by youngster Tommaso D'Orsogna propelled Australia to a bronze medal in the 4x200m 
freestyle relay today.
With the Michael Phelps-led USA team and Russia battling it out for gold, Australia was locked in a tight battle with Japan, Germany and Italy for third place.
The Aussies were in sixth place after the swims of Kenrick Monk and Robert Hurley but then D'Orsogna, at 18 the youngest male member of the Telstra Dolphins team, set about dragging them back into medal contention.
He swam with loads of maturity to resist the temptation to go too fast but instead gradually gained on the teams in front in a sizzling 1:44.82 leg, one of only nine sub 1:45 times among the 32 swimmers in the final.
D'Orsogna touched the wall 0.40 clear in third place and his effort was backed up by the finishing swim of Patrick Murphy, who clocked 1:44.36 to bring the Australians home in a Commonwealth record 7:01.65.
Earlier in the championships D'Orsogna swam a personal best of 2:00.31 in the 200m individual medley but failed to qualify for the semi-finals.
At the head of the field in the 4x200m final, USA and Russia carried on a thrilling battle for gold.
Phelps led out the Americans in the first leg - where he was again outswum by 200m champion Paul Biedermann of Germany - and they took the lead in the second leg and held that position throughout but were put under intense pressure in the final leg.
Ryan Lochte, who had earlier contested the 200m backstroke final, was challenged at the final turn by Alexander Sukhorukov, who moved within a second of taking the lead.
Lochte managed to hold on in the final 50 metres to take the Americans to a world record time of 6:58.55, 0.01 ahead of the old record and 0.60 clear of the Russians.
LAUTERSTEIN THROUGH AFTER WORRYING WAIT
Andrew Lauterstein spent 10 minutes worried he would miss tomorrow's final of the 100m butterfly after fading to fifth place
in his semi-final today.
The NSWIS star eventually breathed a sigh of relief following the second semi-final when he learned he had qualified seventh fastest for the race for the gold medal.
Lauterstein started well enough up against superstar Michael Phelps and Spanish speedster Rafael Munoz, turning at the 50m just behind the American.
But a worrying fade out in the final 20 metres saw him slip back to place fifth in 51.03.
With Serbian Milorad Cavic clocking a world record 50.01 in the second semi-final and Phelps chasing another gold medal, Lauterstein will need to find sharp improvement to challenge for a medal tomorrow.
Backstroke superstar Aaron Peirsol of the United States bounced back from his surprise elimination in the 100m to take the gold medal in the 200m today while doing serious damage to his own world record.
Faced with strong challenged from countryman Ryan Lochte and Japan's Ryosuke Irie, Peirsol was back to his best and won in 1:51.92, breaking the world record by 1.16 seconds.
He took charge at the 50m turn and was never headed although Irie did produce a swift final lap to get within 0.59 of the winner and well under the old world record.
There wasn't such a good result for Peirsol's team mate Rebecca Soni, the hot favourite to win the 200m breaststroke final.
The Olympic champion, keen to regain her world record, set off at a sizzling pace and led by more than two body lengths on the third lap, with her time nearly two seconds under world record pace.
But the final 50m was a lap too far for Soni, who ran out of gas 30 metres from the finish and was swamped by a line of chasers 10 metres from the wall.
The prize for the most stunned winner of the championships must go to Serbia's Nadja Higl, who emerged unheralded from lane two to grab the gold medal.
Higl looked perplexed by what had happened as she slumped on the lane rope and tried to comprehend her new status as world champion, having edged out Canada's Annamay Pierse and Austrian Mirna Jukic. Soni finished fourth.
Frenchman Frederick Bousquet will try to top off his great season with a gold medal in tomorrow's final of the 50m freestyle.
Bousquet obviously had more petrol in his tank after qualifying fastest in a 21.21, with Croatia's Duja Draganja next best in 21.29. Bousquet's team mate Amaury Leveaux clocked 21.32 while 100m champion Cesar Cielo was fourth fastest in 21.35.
Australia's Matt Abood clocked a personal best 21.74 in finishing seventh in his semi-final and showed better things are ahead for the Sydney-based speedster.
Bousquet's time was the fastest in the semi-finals but it was bettered in a swim-off for the final place in the tomorrow's gold medal sprint.
Trinidad and Tobago's George Bovell III clocked a championship record 21.20 in defeating Hungarian Krisztian Takacs after they had clocked the same semi-final time.
Tomorrow's 200m backstroke final looks set to be a tight race after Olympic champion Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe led the qualifiers from today's semi-finals.
Coventry clocked a slick 2:05.86 to finish ahead of Anastasia Zueva (2:07.00), and Britain's Elizabeth Simmonds, 2:07.21. Australians Belinda Hocking (9th) and Sophie Edington (13th) missed the final.
Great Britain will also have a good chance for gold in tomorrow's women's 800m final. Olympic champ Rebecca Adlington (8:20.53) and Joanne Jackson (8:20.80) led the qualifiers. Romania's Camelia Potec was third fastest in 8:22.03.
Melissa Gorman ended an exhausting campaign as the 15th fastest qualifier in 8:36.36 while Blair Evans took 8.5 seconds off her personal best time in finishing 18th.