Records fall at shortcourse too

American Peter Marshall celebrates his 50m backstroke victory with a new world mark in the FINA Swimming World Cup in Singapore yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

South Africa's Kathryn Meaklim, American Peter Marshall and Swedish swim queen Therese Alshammar stormed to new world records on Sunday as the shortcourse World Cup season concluded in style.
In the high humidity of Singapore and at a partially-enclosed aquatic complex, the first day of the meet Saturday surprisingly saw no new world marks despite 16 being set in Berlin last weekend.
But that all changed with the powerfully-built Meaklim obliterating the women's 400m individual medley record.
She turned under world record time after the butterfly then fell off the pace on backstroke before recovering strongly with impressive breaststroke and freestyle legs to clock 4mins 22.88secs.
It knocked nearly three seconds off the old mark set by Spain's Mareia Belmonte in Rijeka, Croatia in December last year.
Like Meaklim, Marshall has been in sizzling form this year and he broke his own 50m backstroke world record, leading from start-to-finish to touch in 22.61secs.
His time shaved a fraction of a second off his previous record of 22.73 set in Stockholm earlier this month.