Xu wins 100 backstroke title as 3 records fall
China's Xu Jiayu won men's 100-meter backstroke gold at the FINA world championships on Tuesday.
The 21-year-old Olympic silver medalist clocked 52.44 seconds with American duo Matt Grevers earning silver, at 0.04 sec back, and Olympic champion Ryan Murphy taking bronze at 0.15.
Earlier, Britain's Adam Peaty broke a pair of 50-meter breaststroke world records on the same day in Budapest, and Canada's Kylie Masse took down a mark from the rubber-suit era.
Peaty set the first mark on Tuesday with a time of 26.10 seconds in the morning preliminaries, shaving 0.32 seconds off the standard he set at the 2015 worlds in Kazan, Russia. He went even faster during the evening semifinals of the non-Olympic event, touching in 25.95.
When Peaty saw the time, he mouthed in disbelief, "No way." The final is on Wednesday.
Masse won the women's 100 backstroke with a time of 51.10 — 0.02 better than the mark set by Britain's Gemma Spofforth's at the 2009 worlds in Rome, the last hurrah for rubberized suits that allowed swimmers to re-write the record book.
Four swimming world records have fallen in Budapest.
Having won the 100 breaststroke gold on Monday, Peaty showed his blistering form over the shorter distance by breaking the 26-second barrier.
The scorching time left his rivals in his wake as Brazil's Felipe Lima was 0.73 seconds back, while South Africa's Cameron van der Burgh was third fastest into the final at 0.79.
"It's impressive eh, he's the first one in history (to go under 26 seconds)," said Van der Burgh.
However, Lima insisted Peaty will not have everything his own way on Wednesday.
"It's insane, but the final will be another race," said the Brazilian.