MOSCOW, April 3: Yang Yu anchored China to the first world record of the short-course world championships in the women’s 4x200 metres freestyle relay on Wednesday.

Xu Yanwei, Zhu Yingwen, Tang Jingzhi and Yang clocked seven minutes 46.30 seconds to beat the short-course mark of 7:47.14 set by Britain’s Karen Legg, Janine Belton, Nicola Jackson and Karen Pickering in Norwich, England, last August.

Lindsay Benko had given the United States a great start with a magnificent first leg time of 1:54.97, the fastest split of the race, putting her the best part of a second ahead of Xu.

The Americans still held the lead at the final take-over but Yang, who had earlier taken the silver medal in the 200 metres butterfly, burst past Rachel Komisarz and touched at the finish more than a second clear.

The U.S. took silver in 7:47.55 and Australia bronze in 7:49.50.

American Klete Keller claimed the first gold medal when he came through strongly to win the men’s 200 metres freestyle title Wednesday.

Keller, bronze medallist at last July’s long-course world championships behind Australia’s Ian Thorpe and Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband, was third behind Canada’s Mark Johnston and Brazil’s Gustavo Borges at the halfway mark.

Medal table

Medals table at the end of the first day of the five-day world short-course swimming championships on Wednesday:

United States 2 1 1

China 1 1 0

Australia 1 0 1

Ukraine 1 0 0

Brazil 0 1 0

Slovenia 0 1 0

Sweden 0 1 0

Argentina 0 0 1

Canada 0 0 1

Russia 0 0 1

—Reuters