ROME. Sept 8: China's women smashed the 4x100 metres freestyle relay world record on „ to bring a tri-

umphant end to a day on which they dethroned swimming queens Janet Evans and Krisztina Egerszegi. reports Reuter.

In the men's races, there was double gold for Russia as Olympic champion Alexander Popov took the 100 metres freestyle title and Vladimir Selkov won the 200 metres backstroke final.

In the diving. Fan Shuping won the three-metre springboard title as the Chinese, ignoring doping rumours which dog them, took their gold medal tally to 10 at these championships.

Russia^wrth two golds, are a distant re^ond in the medal standings.

Led off by newly-crowned 100 metres champion Le Jingyi and anchored by double Rome silver medallist Lu Bin. China clocked three minutes 37.91 seconds to lower the relay record of 3:39.46 set by the Americans at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992.

"Before the competition started we planned to break the world record in this event.' Le said.

Yang Aihua clinched the 400 metres freestyle title as defending champion and world record holder Evans of the US finished back in fifth.

The second slowest qualifier for the final. Yang clocked 4:09.64 to take gold ahead of American Cristina Teuscher while Costa Rican Claudia Poll took her second bronze in successive days.

Olympic champion Dagmar Hase missed the final.

Hase, ninth quickest in the heals, found teammate Jana Henke unwilling to cede her

place in the eight-woman final as Hase has done to such telling effect for Franziska van Almsick 24 hours earlier. Henke finished out of the medals.

Hungarian Egerszegi slumped Io her first major defeat for five years aa China's He Clhong won Ihe KM) metres backstroke title.'

She swam 1:00.57 to lower the championship record for the second time in the space of a few hours.

Nina Zhivanevskaya took silver for Russia while American Barbara Bedford picked up bronze.

Popov struck gold for Russia in the 100 metres freestyle but was given a tougher fight than expected by American Gary Hall, the son of former American Olympian Gary Sr.

Popov overhauled Hall on the second length of the Foro Italico pool but his time of 49.12 seconds was well outside the record of 48.21 seconds he set in Monaco three months ago.

Brazilian Gustavo Borges. 1992 Olympic silver medalist, took bronze.

"There are competitions for breaking world records and competitions to win and the medal here means more than the time," Popov said.

T will be in better shape in Atlanta (for the 1996 Olympics). I can promise that,' he added.

Russian Selkov repeated his 1993 European Championships backstroke win over Olympic champion Martin Lopez- Zubero

Selkov smashed the eight-year-old championship record as he came home in 1:57.42 and at one stage looked set to eclipse Lopez-Zubero's world record of 1:56.57.

The top-two Olympic plac-tngs were reversed as Lopez-Zubero ended with silver ahead of Ihird-placed American Royce Sharp