Double gold for Krayzelburg

Lenny Krayzelburg is happy with his second gold medal

American swimmer Lenny Krayzelburg has added the gold medal in the Men's 200 metre Backstroke to the 100 metre gold he picked up on Monday.

Krayzelburg claimed a new Olympic record as he fired past his nearest rivals with a time of 1:56.76.

Fellow American Aaron Peirsol trailed behind by almost half a second (1:57.35) who claimed silver medal.

The crowd was in particularly noisy mood as Australian Matthew Welsh grabbed an impressive bronze clocking 1:57.59.

Iceland's Orn Arnarson and Italian Emanuele Merisi followed close behind.

Medley final

Massimiliano Rosolino choked back the tears as he claimed the gold in the men's 200m individual medley final, giving Italy their third swimming title of the Games in an Olympic record one minute 58.98 seconds.

In a titanic struggle the Americans Tom Dolan and Tom Wilkens had to settle for silver and bronze respectively.

World champion Marcel Wouda of the Netherlands led on the opening butterfly leg and defending Olympic champion Attila Czene of Hungary took over on the backstroke but they could not maintain the pace for a medal.

Rosolino ecstatic with victory

Czene was fourth and Wouda fifth, while world record holder Jani Sievinen, the 1996 Olympic silver medallist, finished last.

Freestyle

American Gary Hall posted the fastest semi-final time in the 50 metres freestyle.

Hall, bronze medallist behind Pieter van den Hoogenband and Alexander Popov in the 100 metres freestyle final, clocked 22.07 seconds to win the first semi-final.

Fellow American Anthony Ervin (22.13) was second, while Pieter van den Hoogenband, winner of the Sydney 100 and 200 freestyle titles, won the second semi-final in 22.11 from world record holder Alexander Popov (22.17).

British boost

Mark Foster gave Britain's Olympic campaign a much-needed boost, qualifying in third position with a time of 22.32 seconds.

The other qualifiers are Lorenzo Vismara (Italy), Bartosz Kizierowski (Poland) and Oleksandr Volynets (Ukraine).

James Hickman, Manchester's Commonwealth champion, went out in the 100m butterfly semi-final clocking 53.55 for sixth place as Australia's Geoff Heugill won in an Olympic record of 51.96.

The other qualifiers are Michael Klim (Australia), Ian Crocker (U.S.), Lars Frolander (Sweden), Michael Mintenko (Canada), Takashi Yamamoto (Japan), Thomas Rupprath (Germany) and Anatoli Poliakov (Russia).