/world sport
COLUMBIA, Missouri -- Zimbabwean Kirsty Coventry broke the women's 200m backstroke world record in Columbia on Saturday with a time of 2min 06.39sec at the Missouri Grand Prix long course swimming meeting.
Coventry improved on Krisztina Egerszegi's record of 2:06.62, which the Hungarian set in Athens on August 25, 1991 - the second-oldest record on the books.
The oldest swimming world mark is American Janet Evans' 800m freestyle record, which has stood since 1989.
At the Beijing Olympics the 24-year-old Coventry hopes to defend the 200m backstroke gold she won in Athens four years ago - giving Zimbabwe its first Olympic swimming gold.
She also won a silver and a bronze in Athens, where she finished second in the 100m back and third in the 200m individual medley,
US superstar Michael Phelps won the 200m butterfly on Saturday in 1:53.31, outside his own world record but the fastest in the world this year and comfortably in front of Brazilian runner-up Kaio Almeida (1:56.44).
Katie Hoff smashed the American record in the women's 400m freestyle with a blistering time of 4:02.20 - seven-hundredths off the world record of French swim star Laure Manaudou. E-mail to a friend 
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