Thorpe retains 200m and collects his 10th gold

IAN THORPE underlined his status as the world’s greatest swimmer when he defended his men’s 200m freestyle title at the world swimming championships in Barcelona yesterday.

It is the 10th world gold for the 20-year-old Australian world record holder over the distance who clocked 1min 45.14sec to push Olympic champion Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands into second in 1:46.43 with Australian Grant Hackett taking bronze in 1:46.85. Van den Hoogenband, 25, had been bidding to claim the title after being runner-up at the last world championships in Fukuoka, where Thorpe set a new world record after being pushed into second by the Dutchman at the Sydney Olympics.

Thorpe has not been beaten in an individual world championships’ race since he became swimming’s youngest world champion at 15 when he won the 400m freestyle in Perth. He became the first swimmer ever to win three consecutive titles in the one race at the weekend when he won gold in the 400m. But his Australian team-mates Matthew Welsh and Leisel Jones were not so fortunate with Welsh losing his 100m backstroke crown to Aaron Peirsol of the United States.

Peirsol, 20, the world champion and record holder in the 200m backstroke, clocked 53.61sec to push defending Welsh into joint silver with Russia's Arkady Vyatchanin after both timed 53.92. Welsh had surprised by winning the 50m fly Monday night in a new world record time.

Earlier, Luo Xuejuan of China became the first woman to successfully defend her women’s 100m breaststroke title. She clocked 1:06.80 ahead of Amanda Beard of the United States in 1:07.42, with Jones having to settle for bronze after timing 1:07.47.

Jones set a new world record of 1:06.37 in the semi-finals and the 17-year-old had been bidding for her first world title after being runner-up at the last worlds and the Olympics.