Melbourne (AFP) - Australia's Lani Pallister completed a sweep of the 400-800-1500m triple at the World Short Course Championships Friday as Canada's Maggie MacNeil broke her own 50m backstroke world mark and two relay records tumbled.
Pallister, 20, backed up her 400 and 800 crowns with a dominant swim in the distance event to touch in 15mins 21.43secs and announce herself as a serious threat to superstar Katie Ledecky, who skipped the meet.
"It was a little bit harder than I expected," she said poolside in Melbourne.
"The 800 was probably my best event this week.But I'm just really excited, I couldn't have asked for much better.It's been an incredible experience."
Pallister finished more than 25 seconds clear of second-placed Miyu Namba of Japan.
Defending champion MacNeil led home the United States' Claire Curzan, touching in 25.25 seconds to shave 0.2secs of her old mark set last year.
Australian Mollie O'Callaghan, usually a freestyler, was third.
"I'm ecstatic, I knew it would be hard to swim a best time," MacNeil said after winning her fourth medal of the meet, having shared the 50m butterfly gold with American Torri Huske and two relay bronze.
"I just really wanted to see the improvement even just a couple of hundreds.I am learning so much and I was able to fix all those little errors tonight."
American Ryan Murphy won the men's title in 22.64 ahead of Australia's Issac Cooper and Kacper Stokowski of Poland.
The US team of Kieran Smith, Carson Foster, Trenton Julian and Drew Kibler also set a new world best in the men's 4x200m freestyle, powering home in 6:44.12.
It obliterated the previous best held by Brazil by more than two seconds.Australia was second, also under the old record.
Sizzling form
Another world record came from France in the mixed 4x50m freestyle, hitting the wall in 1:27.33.
They dominated from the first leg when Maxime Grousset swam a storming 50m to hand over to Florent Manaudou, with Beryl Gastaldello and Melanie Henrique bringing them home.
Emma McKeon was phenomenal on the anchor of the Australian team, but they could only finish second with the Netherlands third.
It was the seventh world record so far after Australia set a new best time in the women's 4x100 freestyle relay and Italy in the men's race on the opening day Tuesday.
The host nation then did the same in the women's 4x200m freestyle, with the United States shattering the mixed 4x50m medley mark.
Veteran Daiya Seto won Japan's first gold, proving too strong for 100m breaststroke champion Nic Fink in the 200m race.
Seto touched in an Asian record 2:00.35, just 0.19 secs outside the world record, with China's Qin Halyang third.
Kate Douglass was also in sizzling form to win the women's 200m breaststroke, pulling away from Lily King in the final 50m to hit the wall in a championship record 2:15.77, well clear of her American teammate.The Netherlands' Tes Schouten took bronze.
Another Dutchwoman, Marrit Steenbergen, won the women's 100m medley, while Italy's Thomas Ceccon claimed the men's title.
