DAEGU (South Korea), Aug 29: Dual Commonwealth gold medallist Rebecca Cooke of Britain set a World Student Games record in the women’s 1,500m swimming Friday to bring up her third title of the tournament.

The congenitally deaf Scot, who had already won the 200m and 800m and took bronze in the 400m individual medley, punched the air in joy after finishing in 16 min 14.70 sec, smashing the previous mark set by Sachiko Yamada of Japan by 4.74 sec.

Cooke, who led from the outset, touched home a good five metres ahead of Americans Adrienne Binder and Lauren Costella.

Takahiro Mori of Japan set his second record of the tournament in the men’s 400m individual medley. Mori, who already set a games record in the final of the 200m individual medley, swam 4:17.23 to better American Kevin Clement’s mark by 0.59 sec.

Other records tumbled in the men’s 50m butterfly, with Audriy Serdinov swimming 23.93 sec to improve his own games mark by 0.05 sec, and the women’s 4x100m medley, which China won in 4:06.22.

In Friday’s other swimming results, Yoshihiro Okumura of Japan won the men’s 200m freestyle in 1:49.82 and Shannan Catalano of the United States took the women’s 50m butterfly.

China’s incredible diving performance continued as Tian Liang won the men’s platform, besting compatriot Hu Jia. China, which leads the medals table with 28, has won all eight diving golds contested so far with four more to be decided on Saturday.

In Friday’s athletics events, Ronain Barras of France held on to his overnight lead to win the decathlon with 8,196 points, 74 ahead of Estonian Indrek Turi on 8,122.

Russia’s Oxana Rogova took the women’s triple jump with a leap of 14.16m, 1.34m off the world record, while Sergiv Lebid of Ukraine and Australian Eloise Poppett won the men’s and women’s 5,000m respectively. Neither runner troubled the record books.

Meanwhile, the team sports competitions were nearing the sharp end on Friday. South Korea blanked the United States 3-0 to set up a men’s volleyball final with Japan, who overcame France 3-1.

Canada’s vaunted men’s basketball team fell to Serbia and Montenegro but said they were ready to take on China, including giant 212-centimetre (seven-foot) centre Xue Yuyang, for the bronze medal on Sunday.

Serbia and Montenegro also booked their place in the waterpolo final with a 9-7 win over Italy. In Saturday’s final the Serbs will face Hungary, who beat Australia 8-4.

Meanwhile, Igor Zelenay of Slovakia beat Taiwan’s Lu Yen-Hsun 2-6, 6-4, 8-6 to win the men’s singles tennis.

Russia’s Gul Nara Fattakhetdinova beat China’s Xie Yanze 6-3, 6-4 in the women’s final while Iain Bates and Jim May of Britain won the men’s doubles 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, besting Rodrigo Echagaray Rodriguez and Carlos Alberto Lozano Aguilar of Mexico.

Chan Chin-Wei and Chuang Chia-Jung later won the women’s doubles for Taiwan while Russia’s Artem Derepasko and Maria Goloviznina won the mixed doubles.

Top medal standings at the World Student Games after eight days of full competition (gold, silver, bronze, total):

1. China 28 24 11 63

2. Russia 24 16 28 68

3. South Korea 23 10 11 44

4. Ukraine 15 11 12 38

5. Japan 9 8 18 35

6. France 8 7 4 19

7. Britain 7 2 4 13

8. United States 5 12 13 30

9. Taiwan 3 2 5 10

10. Australia 2 4 4 10

11. Germany 2 2 6 10

12. Italy 2 2 4 8

13. Poland 2 2 2 6

14. Hungary 2 1 6 9

15. South Africa 2 1 1 4

16. Czech Republic 2 0 2 4

17. Uzbekistan 2 0 1 3

18. Spain 1 4 6 11

19. North Korea 1 3 1 5

20. Brazil 1 2 6 9

—AFP