The 21-year-old finished third in the 100 metres backstroke in a Commonwealth record time of 53.61sec. The race was won by the American Aaron Peirsol, who beat his own world record with 52.98sec.

Although Cassandra Patten won silver in the 10-kilometre open water race last week, the Loughborough University swimmer's medal was Britain's first at the Rod Laver Arena.

Scotland's Kirsty Balfour missed out on a medal after finishing fifth in the 100m breaststroke final. The City of Edinburgh swimmer had qualified fourth fastest but was slower in the final than in her semi-final.

She recovered and clocked 1min 8.05sec, but was more than two seconds behind the gold medallist, Leisel Jones of Australia, whose time of 1min 5.72sec shattered the championship record. Balfour, 23, is a 200m specialist but had broken her own British record with a time of 1min 07.67sec to reach the final of the shorter event.

Caitlin McClatchey qualified seventh fastest for the 200m freestyle final after finishing second in her semi-final in 1:57.86 although Mel Marshall missed out in fifth. The Italian Federica Pellegrini set a world record in the event with a time of 1:56.47 to better Franziska van Almsick's old mark.

The former world champion James Gibson failed to qualify for the final of the 50m breaststroke after finishing 11th in the semi-finals.

The American Michael Phelps smashed the 200 metres freestyle world record to claim his fourth individual world mark. The 21-year-old, who helped secure the United States' first gold of the competition in the 4x100m freestyle relay, stormed to victory in 1:43.86, shaving 0.2sec off Ian Thorpe's six-year-old mark. The Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband clinched silver in 1:46.28, ahead of the third-placed Park Tae Hwan of South Korea.

Natalie Coughlin claimed another world record for the US as she broke her own mark to win the 100m backstroke in 59.44.