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Melissa Woods

McKeon wins freestyle sprint double

Emma McKeon (c) displays her 50m gold medal after completing the sprint double. (Joel Carrett/AAP PHOTOS) (AAP)

Superfish Emma McKeon has locked in the short course world championship sprint double, adding the 50m freestyle to her 100m crown on Saturday night.

The 28-year-old got off to a flying start and led at the 25-metre turn before burning up the second lap for a clear win ahead of Poland's Katarzyna Wasick and Great Britain's Anna Hopkin.

McKeon's time of 23.04 seconds topped her previous personal best by 0.46 and set a new championship record, while also bringing Australia's gold medal tally to 11.

Despite her dominance the Wollongong whiz said she didn't consider herself a 50m swimmer.

"I still don't actually call myself a 50m freestyle specialist - I prefer the 100," McKeon said.

"But I just knew that I had to kill that start and probably one of my strengths is my start so I knew if I got that I could be in contention.

"The Polish girl in lane four definitely had a much faster PB going in so I knew I really had to be on my game."

Before the Melbourne titles McKeon, owner of 11 Olympic medals, had never won an individual world championship title at either short or long course.

The victory came after she also helped the Australian women smash another relay world record, taking gold in the 4x50m medley relay earlier in the evening.

Madi Wilson anchored the team, swimming the freestyle leg with McKeon taking butterfly, with the home side touching the wall in 1:42.35, just 0.06 ahead of the US with Sweden (1:42.43) third.

The time broke the world record set by the Americans in 2018 by 0.03 seconds.

Wilson, as well as backstroke leg swimmer Mollie O'Callaghan, have now set three relay world records in Melbourne, also conquering the 4x100m freestyle and 4x200m freestyle marks.

Madi Wilson, Chelsea Hodges, Mollie O'Callaghan and Emma McKeon (l to r) won medley relay gold. (Joel Carrett/AAP PHOTOS) (AAP)

It was breaststroke leg swimmer Chelsea Hodges' first medal of the meet.

Queenslander Wilson said she was feeling the pressure taking over McKeon's usual role of bringing the Aussies home with the final leg.

"The medley spot is usually saved for the number one freestyler in the country and obviously Emma is amazing at so many different strokes so that was my first time anchoring, the relay and I definitely felt the pressure," the 28-year-old said.

"But I couldn't be more happy with how it turned out."

With six already in his bag, Kyle Chalmers missed the chance to become the most medalled Australian at a single world championships, unable to crack the podium in the men's 50m freestyle.

The race was won by Jordan Crooks from the Cayman Islands, securing his country's first medal of any colour at a world titles.

Earlier, Chalmers was part of the men's 4x50m medley relay team who had to settle for bronze as victorious Italy also set a world record.

Chalmers stormed through the field in the final leg but couldn't catch Leonardo Deplano, with the Italians' time of 1:29.72 besting their own record of 1:30.14.

The men's 800m field were chasing Australian great Grant Hackett's short course record of 7:23.42 set way back in 2008.

Italian veteran Gregorio Paltrinieri was a clear winner but didn't get close to Hackett's long-standing mark, stopping the clock in 7:29.99.

Norway's Henrik Christiansen took silver with Frenchman Logan Fontaine in bronze.

Japan hero Daiya Seto won the men's 400m medley for the the sixth consecutive time.

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