Swimming: Jones smashes breaststroke record

SYDNEY - Leisel Jones smashed her own world record to win the women's 200 metres breaststroke at the Australian Commonwealth Games trials in Melbourne on Wednesday.

Jones powered to victory in two minutes 20.54 seconds to slice 1.18sec off the previous record of 2min 21.72sec, which she set winning gold at the 2005 world championships in Montreal.

She was the third Australian woman to set a world record in as many days at the national championships, being held at the Melbourne Sport and Aquatic Centre.

Jade Edmistone lowered her 50m breaststroke world record with 30.31 in Monday's heats then Jones' training partner Libby Lenton regained the 100m freestyle mark with a 53.42 during Tuesday's semifinals.

Lenton won the final in 53.67 on Wednesday, just ahead of Olympic champion and former record holder Jodie Henry (53.85).

Ian Thorpe set the fastest time in the semifinals of the men's 100m freestyle, stopping the clock at 48.86.

Thorpe won the 200m freestyle final on Tuesday in his first major competition since the 2004 Athens Olympics and is hoping to develop into a specialist sprinter.

He announced he had dropped his favourite event, the 400m freestyle, but is under pressure to swim the eight-lap race at the Commonwealth Games to boost Australia's medal count.

Jones won the 100m-200m breaststroke double Montreal to end her frustrating run of near misses in major events and has not looked back since.

The 20-year-old won a silver medal as a teenager at the Sydney 2000 Olympics and finished with minor medals at the 2001 and 2003 world championships and the 2004 Athens Olympics.

The North Shore's Helen Norfolk and Moss Burmester impressed at the Australian trials yesterday.

Norfolk showed she has fully recovered from ankle surgery, producing the ninth fastest time of 2m 39.00s in the 200m breaststroke. Burmester set a personal best of 52.36s in the 100m freestyle heats, while clubmate Robert Voss swam 52.39s with Corney Swanepoel a second behind.

- REUTERS