MONTREAL, July 29: Italian Filippo Magnini became the second-fastest 100m freestyle swimmer in history on Thursday, winning the coveted title in a blistering 48.12sec at the 11th World Swimming Championships. Magnini fended off the formidable challenge of South Africans Roland Schoeman and Ryk Neethling, who finished second and third.

And the trio of speedsters did something few swimmers can manage these days: They left six-time Olympic champion Michael Phelps floundering in their wake.

He finished with a championship record - only world record-holder Pieter van den Hoogenband has swum faster.

But after trailing both Schoeman and Neethling at the turn, he didn’t know until the race was over that he had gotten past them. Schoeman was runner-up again, in 48.28. Neethling took the bronze in 48.34.

Schoeman broke the 50m butterfly world record twice en route to the final. Schoeman took the 100m out in an astonishing 22.42 sec, but he couldn’t shake Magnini. Phelps, eighth at the turn, was seventh in 48.99sec, six-hundredths of a second outside his personal best.

It was the second freestyle experiment for Phelps at these championships and the second disappointing finish. He didn’t even make it to the final of the 400m free. But a return to his comfort zone in the 200m medley — in which he came in as the world record-holder as well as world and Olympic champion — yielded the sixth individual world title of Phelps’s career.

That matches the record held by Australian great Ian Thorpe - who is skipping Montreal - and Aussie Grant Hackett, who like Phelps has more gold in sight before his week here ends.

In the medley, Phelps surged past Hungarian Lazslo Cseh to win in 1:56.68.

Cseh, who led after the butterfly and backstroke legs, settled for silver in a European record of 1:57.61, with American Ryan Lochte taking bronze in 1:57.79.

Poland’s Olympic champion Otylia Jedrzejczak bettered her world record in the women’s 200m butterfly, adding the world title to the gold she won in Athens in 2:05.61.

Jedrzejczak clung to Aussie Jessica Schipper’s shoulder the entire race, finally passing her on the final lap.

She bettered the previous record of 2:05.78 that she set in Berlin on August 4, 2002.

Schipper’s time of 2:05.65 was also inside the previous mark, but the 18-year-old said there was no sense of disappointment at missing out on either the world record or the gold.

Japan’s Yuko Nakanishi was a distant third, taking the bronze in 2:09.40.

Results

Men: 100m freestyle final: 1. Filippo Magnini (ITA) 48.12 - gold medal 2. Roland Schoeman (RSA) 48.28 - silver medal 3. Ryk Neethling (RSA) 48.34 - bronze medal

200m medley final: 1. Michael Phelps (USA) 1:56.68 - gold medal 2. Laszlo Cseh (HUN) 1:57.61 - silver medal 3. Ryan Lochte (USA) 1:57.79 - bronze medal

Women: 50m backstroke final: 1. Giaan Rooney (AUS) 28.63 - gold medal 2. Gao Chang (CHN) 28.69 - silver medal

200m butterfly final: 1. Otylia Jedrzejczak (POL) 2:05.61 - gold medal 2. Jess Schipper (AUS) 2:05.65 - silver medal 3. Yuko Nakanishi (JPN) 2:09.40 - bronze medal

4x200m freestyle relay final: 1. United States (Natalie Coughlin, Katie Hoff, Whitney Myers, Kaitlin Sandeno) 7:53.70 - gold medal 2. Australia (Lisbeth Lenton, Shayne Reese, Bronte Barrat, Linda MacKenzie) 7:54.06 - silver medal 3. China (Zhu Yingwen, Pang Jiaying, Zhou Yafei, Yang Yu) 7:57.29 - bronze medal.—Agencies

MEDALS TABLE