Le Clos leads way as records sink in Singapore

South Africa's Chad Le Clos shattered his own 200m butterfly shortcourse world record in Singapore Tuesday as Australia twice powered to new marks in the mixed 4x50m medley relay. Under stormy skies, the world and Olympic champion produced a lightning swim to touch in 1min 48.56sec, nearly half-a-second under his record set in August and five seconds ahead of the pack. The 21-year-old later added 50m butterfly gold to extend his lead in the overall standings with just two stops left in the eight-leg series after Singapore. "I just heard the crowd pick up and I knew that I was under world record pace," said Le Clos. "For me it's just about getting faster each year, and the most important thing is that I keep dominating the events that I am dominating and extending on other events like the freestyle and individual medley races," he added. Le Clos was the star but Australia caused fireworks of their own with not one but two world records in the newly introduced 4x50m mixed medley relay, the first in the morning heats. Robert Hurley, Christian Sprenger, Alicia Coutts and Cate Campbell combined for times of 1:39.08 and then 1:38.02, twice bettering France's record set in Doha last month. "We're going to break it again! Two or three more times (this year)," Sprenger said. "We're definitely going to get it again. We're progressing well and we're going to be fast, so it should be good." Hungary's Katinka Hosszu added to her lead in the overall standings with another two golds, while Russia's Vladimir Morozov also topped the podium twice at Singapore Sports School. The evening started in thrilling fashion as New Zealand's Lauren Boyle held off world record-holder Mireia Belmonte to win the 800m freestyle. Three-time world sprint champion Roland Schoeman used a vastly superior start to power home in the men's 50m breaststroke, beating Australia's Sprenger by more than half a second. Jamaica's Alia Atkinson annihilated the field in the women's 100m breaststroke to win by nearly two seconds, threatening the world record, and Hosszu won a tight women's 100m butterfly. Australia's two-time Olympic relay champion Emily Seebohm out-touched Britain's Elizabeth Simmons by 15 hundredths to win the women's 50m backstroke. In the swim of the night, Le Clos was half-a-second below his own 200m butterfly world record, set in August, at the 150m mark and he powered home to lower it by 0.48. Le Clos punched the water and waved to the crowd, before returning to the pool to take 50m butterfly gold with another dominant swim ahead of Schoeman and Brazil's Nicholas Santos. Cate Campbell led her younger sister Bronte to a one-two in the 50m freestyle before rounding off the night by anchoring Australia to their second world record in the mixed medley relay. Source: AFP