FINA: Lilly King, Adam Peaty, Kylie Masse smash world records in swimming

Reuters

Budapest: The world championships came alive on Tuesday as Lilly King of the United States won the women`s 100 metres breaststroke title in one of three world- record swims at the end of a breath-taking evening session.

Adam Peaty of Britain continued his breaststroke trail-blazing with his second world mark of the day to reach the 50m final and Canada`s Kylie Masse produced a world-best time to win the women`s 100m backstroke gold medal.

If the day belonged to Peaty, the evening will be long remembered by Olympic champion King, who posted one minute 4.13 seconds to overhaul the world-record mark set by Lithuania`s Ruta Meilutyte in 2013.

King held off the threat of Russian rival Yuliya Efimova, in a race billed as a grudge rematch of their acrimonious Olympic final, and the U.S. secured a memorable one-two as Katie Meili touched for silver in one minute 5.03 seconds.

King, 20, has voiced her disapproval at Efimova being allowed to compete at global level after the Russian had twice been caught using banned substances.

The spiky relationship continued in Budapest with King celebrating her world record wildly and failing to make eye contact with Efimova who had to settle for bronze.

A disbelieving Peaty, the stand-out male swimmer of thesechampionships, became the first man to dip below 26 seconds in the 50m breaststroke.

By touching in 25.95 seconds, he lowered his record mark from the morning`s heats by a massive 0.15 seconds.

"I was on such a massive high from this morning and it was so hard to ignore the fact that I did a world record in the morning and try to get myself emotionally ready," Peaty told reporters.

Masse produced an outstanding world-record swim of 58.10 seconds as Australia`s quiet world championships continued with Emily Seebohm failing to defend her title.

Briton Gemma Spofforth`s mark of 58.12 seconds had been set at the 2009 world championships in the era of buoyancy-enhancing body suits, which made Masse`s time all the more remarkable.

Kathleen Baker of the United States, the Olympic silver medallist, had to settle for the same prize as she beat Seebohm by 0.01 seconds.