Dubai: Therese Alshammar of Sweden edged her way towards leaving a mark of her own in the world of swimming when she claimed the women's 50m butterfly gold to remain just one medal away from being the woman with the most World Championships medals.
And world champion Paul Biedermann got Germany their first medal here with victory in the 400m freestyle with a time of 3:37.06, well ahead of Russia's Nikita Lobintsev (3:37.87) and Tunisia's Oussama Mellouli (3:38.17), who helped himself to his third medal in as many days here.
Swimming in a star-studded field that also consisted of China's Lu Ying, Felicity Galvez of Australia and Inge Dekker from the Netherlands, Elshammar won in a new championships record time of 24.87 — a bit shy of her world record of 24.28 — to pocket her 16th career world championships medal.
"Normally I am a bit unlucky with my times, but today luck was on my side," Elshammar said.
Chased down by Australian Galvez, the 33-year-old, was unaware how close the race really was till she finished in a new championships record time of 24.87, bettering her own time of 25.19 set during the heats on Thursday. Galvez finished in second with a time of 24.90 and Jeanette Ottesen got Denmark on the medals table taking the bronze (25.24).
