Swimming World Championships - Day 4

The 12th day of the FINA World Championships in Melbourne provided more historic moments with three more world records, and eleven different nations amongst the medals.

In the Men's 100m Freestyle Semi Final, American veteran Jason Lezak upstaged his higher-fancied rivals to qualify fastest in a time of 48.51 seconds, 0.09 faster than Italy's Filippo Magnini, while Pieter Van Den Hoogenband gets another chance to break his world championship drought, after qualifying third.

Simon Burnett had qualified from the morning heats fifth fastest, but in tonight’s semi-final he couldn’t find enough to secure a place in the final. His finised fifth in his semi-final. His time of 49.22 gives him an overall position of 12th.

Leila Vaziri qualified fastest from the Women's 50m Backstroke Semi-Final in a world record time of 28.16. The American goes into Thursday's final flanked by Aliksandra Herasimenia of Belarus and Reiko Nakamura of Japan.

Michael Phelps (USA) won the Men's 200m Butterfly Final in a world best time of one minute 52.09 seconds. He claimed his third gold medal of the championshiops ahead of China's Peng Wu and Russia's Nikolay Skvortsov.

French swimmer Laure Manaudou won the Women's 200m Freestyle Final with a World Record winning time of 1:55.52, silver went to Germany’s Annika Lurz in 1:55.68 and Frederica Pellegrini of Italy, who had claimed the World Record yesterday, took bronze in 1:56.97. Britain's Caitlin McClatchey finished seventh, in a time of 1:59.28.

Ukrainian Oleg Lisogor's won the Men's 50m BreaststrokeFinal by 0.03 of a second from American Brendan Hansen, in 27.66. South Africa's Cameron Van Der Burgh was third in a field which was separated by just 0.61 of a second.

Australia's Jessicah Schipper was fastest in the Women's 200m Butterfly Semi Final in 2:07.72, with her challengers likely to be American Kimberley Vanderberg and China's Jiao Liuyang.

Jess Dickons and Terri Dunning were both eliminated in tonight’s semi-final. Teenager Dickons completed in 2:11.32 to finish 13th with Dunning recording 2:13..08 to finish 16th.

American Michael Phelps qualifyed fastest from the Men's 200m Individual Medley Semi-Final in 1:57.94, ahead of compatriot Ryan Lochte and Brazilian Thiago Pereira,

Tunisian Oussama Mellouli captured the first ever world championships gold medal for his country in the Men's 800m Freestyle Final. He did not panick when the Frenchman Sebastien Rouault held a two second lead at the halfway mark, and overtook Poland's Przemyslaw Stancyk to take gold. Australian Craig Stevens took the only medal for the Australian hosts
of the day, with bronze.