Peaty takes world mark from Van der Burgh in 50 breast

Having set a world record to lead qualifiers from last night’s 50m Breaststroke semi-finals, Peaty was locked in a battle with South Africa’s two-time champion Cameron Van Der Burgh in the final as the pair powered clear from the middle two lanes.

And there was further joy for Great Britain and Peaty when the mixed 4x100m relay team claimed gold in a world record time later on.

Earlier on Monday, Van der Burgh had finished second in the 100m breaststroke behind victor Adam Peaty of Britain.

Peaty’s gold was his country’s first at a world championships since Liam Tancock won the 50m backstroke in Shanghai in 2011.

Having only recently finished high school, Ledecky made history on Tuesday after swimming a world record of 15:24.48 in the 1,500m final – then qualifying from the 200m semi-finals under thirty minutes later.

During the morning’s heats it was the South African who proved to be a man on a mission when he won his heat in 26.62 seconds to improve on the world record he set in 2009 by 0.05s.

UTTOXETER speedster Adam Peaty has won his first gold medal at a World Championships in Russian Federation in the 100m breastroke.

That is the 200m breaststroke which takes place on Thursday and Friday.

“I am really happy after the bitter-sweet disappointment of last night, when I didn’t get the luck of the touch”.

“I got the world record yesterday, secured the title today – I couldn’t really ask for more”.

The new world champion admitted seeing Van der Burgh comfortably ahead at the turn had given him extra motivation.

While the final days of competition are likely to see Britain slip behind the U.S. and Australia in the swimming medal rankings, the team is filled with optimism for next year’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Ledecky lowered her own world record by 2.23 seconds in the 1,500 free.

“Over the winter I put my blinkers on and go down to hard training”.

Siobhan-Marie O’Connor dug deep to claim her maiden world medal.

Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom broke the women’s 100m butterfly record twice in the space of 24 hours en route to retaining her world title on Monday here.

Countrywoman Melanie Wright was 17th fastest (1:58.94) and failed to qualify for semi-finals.

Meanwhile, Conor Jaeger qualified fastest for Wednesday’s men’s 800m final with a time of seven minutes 44.77.