Phelps stays on course in swimming worlds

Mar 28, 2007, 7:03 GMT

Melbourne - American swimming star Michael Phelps stayed on course Wednesday for a historic eight gold-medal haul at the world swimming championships in Melbourne.

The 21-year-old, who already has two golds from two finals at the championships and on Tuesday broke Ian Thorpe's 200-metre freestyle world record, had no problems advancing to the semi-finals of the 200m individual medley in a time of one minute, 58.70 seconds.

He was followed into the next round by Hungary's Lazlo Cseh, who was 0.08 seconds slower.

Phelps said he had taken sleeping pills after Tuesday's swim. 'I wanted to make sure I slept last night, but I felt good this morning, so hopefully, I'll keep going that way,' he said.

He said he was not concerned about the number of swims he had: 'I have done it before, so it is habit. I have swum four individual events since 2002, so I have had lots of practice.'

In the women's 50m backstroke, French star Laure Manaudou, who was also entered in eight events but disappointed in Tuesday's session as she won silver in the 100m backstroke but was last in the 1,500m freestyle, qualified for the semi-finals with the third-fastest time.

Leila Vaziri, who had the fastest time, was just 0.06 off Janine Pietsch's world record as she swam a championships record in 28.25 seconds.

In the men's 100m freestyle, 0.06 seconds separated the top four qualifiers with Jason Lezak topping the table at 49.02 while Filippo Magnini was 0.03 seconds behind. Pieter Van Den Hoogenband was the third fastest, followed by Alain Bernard.

Local favourite Jessicah Schipper did not have everything her own way in the women's 200m butterfly as she qualified for the semi- finals with the ninth-fastest time - 1.71 seconds behind Canadian Audrey Lacroix, who swam a 2:08.12.

Wednesday's evening session in the Rod Laver Arena of the championships that began March 17 and continue through Sunday sees the finals in the men's 50m breaststroke, 200m butterfly and 800m freestyle while the women will be contesting the 200m freestyle and the 200m butterfly.