Four world records in the first four swim at worlds

Rome - The first four swims of Friday evening's session at the world championships in the Foro Italico in Rome provided fans with four world records. Germany's Britta Steffen won the one medal that has thus far eluded her when she took the gold in the women's 100m freestyle, breaking the world record for the second time in five days. The 25-year-old won the gold in a time of 55.07, beating the old best mark of 52.22, which she established on Sunday as the opening swimmer of the German women's 4x100m freestyle relay swimmer. Briton's Fran Halsall took the silver medal with a time of 55.87, while Libby Trickett of Australia won the bronze medal with a time of 55.93. 'I am really, really happy. Now anything can happen and I can accept it,' Steffen said as she was hugging members of the German technical staff. In the very next race American Aaron Peirsol broke his own men's 200m backstroke world record, winning gold in a time of 1:51.92. His old record stood at 1:53.08. Japan's Ryosuke Irie won the silver medal in 1:52.51, while Peirsol's compatriot Ryan Lochte, who earlier in the week won the 200m individual medley, took the bronze 1.90 off the pace. In the semi-finals of the women's 50m butterfly Marleen Veldhuis broke her own world record in a time of 25.28, taking seven hundredths of a second off her old best mark. In the second semi-final that time was beaten though by Sweden's Therese Alshammar, who came close to breaking the 25-second barrier. She won her heat in a time of 25.07 to go through to Saturday's final. Later Friday, the finals of the women's 200m breaststroke and the 4x200m freestyle relay, as well as the men's 200m breaststroke will be swum. The championships, which started on July 17, end Sunday.