France broke the eight-day-old mixed 4x50m medley relay world record on the opening night of the Doha leg of short-course World Cup on Sunday.
France's Jeremy Stravius competes in the final of the men's 4x100-metre medley relay swimming event in the FINA World Championships at Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona on August 4, 2013
The French quartet of Jeremy Stravius, Giacomo Perez Dortona, Melanie Henique and Anna Santamans used the strategy of opening a lead with both male swimmers first up, and it worked out well.
The final time of 1:39.54 seconds slashed 2.16sec from the previous mark set by Russia in Moscow last weekend.
There was the usual gold rush for South Africa’s Chad le Clos, compatriot Roland Schoeman and Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu who all won twice.
The 21-year-old le Clos, who beat Michael Phelps in the 200m butterfly in 2012 Olympics, decided to add the 400m individual medley to his schedule in Doha, and was a comfortable winner at 4:03.23.
Hungary’s David Verraszto was second in 4:03.95. Tunisia’s Ous Mellouli was third.
Le Clos then returned for his favourite event –- the 200m butterfly -– and even though he was nowhere close to his Dubai timing three days ago, he had no trouble in edging out Poland’s Pawel Korzeniowski.
Le Clos’ timing was 1:50.39.
The South African superstar was then beaten to silver in the 50m butterfly by Schoeman, who also snatched the gold in the 50m breaststroke.
Schoeman, acknowledged as one of the finest sprinters in the world, was a class apart from the field as he won the breaststroke in 25.89sec.
France’s Florent Manaudou followed him to second place at 26.54sec.
And even le Clos wasn’t much of a challenge in butterfly as Schoeman cruised home in 22.30sec, 0.11sec ahead of his compatriot.
Hosszu, the overall winner of the World Cup last year, won two golds –- in the 200m freestyle (1:53.53) and in the 200m individual medley (2:05.45).
Among other winners were Russian Vladimir Morozov (100m freestyle), American Tom Shields (100m backstroke), Aussies Robert Hurley (400m freestyle) and Kenneth To (100m individual medley), Great Britain’s Michael Jamieson (200m breaststroke) and Alia Atkinson of Jamaica (100m breaststroke).