SHANGHAI, April 7: Australian sprint star Libby Lenton snared her first individual title of the ongoing World Short-Course Swimming Championships with an assured victory in the 100m freestyle on Friday.

The defending champion pulled away in the final 25 metres to win by a second from Dutch swimmer Magdalena Veldhuis in 52.33 sec, nearly two seconds off her own world record. Lenton, who anchored Australia to an astonishing victory in the 4x200m freestyle, remains on course to become only the sixth athlete to win six titles at a single world or Olympic swimming competition.

Park's 3:40.43 sec lowered by nearly a second the Asian mark set by China's Zhang Lin, who placed fourth here.

The United States received a double boost with Margaret Hoelzer winning the 200m backstroke and Kate Ziegler taking the 400m freestyle.

The American team, missing top stars Michael Phelps and Aaron Piersol, had only one gold medal before Friday's races.

“Hopefully it's going to be motivation and get everybody fired up,” Hoelzer said.

Kazakhstan's Vladislav Polyakov was delighted to snatch his first major

title after outstripping Australia's Brenton Rickard to win the 200m breaststroke in 2:06.75 sec.

Therese Alshammar of Sweden won the women's butterfly ahead of Austria's

Fabienne Nadarajah and Australia's Matt Welsh timed fastest in the 50m semis.

Ten titles were due to be decided on a bumper third night of the biannual championships.

Results (finals)