American Ryan Lochte, Zimbabwe's Kirsty Coventry and a Dutch relay quartet sent the world record tally soaring to 12 at the world short-course championships on Saturday. Lochte and Coventry have each bagged three of those dozen world marks, one of Lochte's coming in a relay, while Zimbabwe's Coventry has claimed four gold medals and a bronze with one day of the five-day championships remaining. Lochte won his 100 meters individual medley semifinal in 51.25 seconds to better the 51.52 mark set by Ryk Neethling of South Africa in New York in February 2005. The victory put him in line to augment his golden haul from the US 4x100m freestyle relay and 200m and 400m individual medley. The relay and 200m medley were world records. Coventry, with world records in the 400m individual medley and 200m backstroke already secured, annihilated the oldest world short-course record in the book. She carved more than 1-1/2 seconds from the 200m individual medley mark set by American Allison Wagner at the first world short-course championships in Palma de Mallorca on Dec. 5, 1993. She clocked two minutes 06.13 seconds to beat Wagner's 2:07.79 and increase her medal tally. Coventry has won gold in the 100m and 200m backstroke, 200m and 400m individual medley and bronze in the 100m individual medley. Silver medalist Mireia Belmonte of Spain was also inside the old mark in 2:07.47. The Dutch quartet of Hinkelien Schreuder, Femke Heemskerk, Inge Dekker and Marleen Veldhuis brought the evening to a rousing finale in the 4x100m women's freestyle relay. They clocked 3:29.42 to beat the 3:30.85 world mark set by Schreuder, Heemskerk, Ranomi Kromowidjojo and Veldhuis in Eindhoven last December. Dekker, who pulled out of the morning's 100m butterfly heats because she was unwell, made a remarkable recovery and seized the lead from Britain on the third leg of the relay with a split time of 51.76 bettered only by the 51.43 of Veldhuis. The US collected the first two titles of the day to take their golden haul to eight at the top of the medals table, thanks to Jessica Hardy and Peter Marshall. Hardy claimed her third gold with a clear-cut victory in the women's 100m breaststroke to add a championship record 1:04.22 to her world records in the 50m breaststroke and 4x100m medley relay. Marshall edged out 100m backstroke champion Liam Tancock to win the men's 50m backstroke title from the Briton by 0.04 seconds in 23.49. FINA said on Saturday that Istanbul will stage the 2012 world short-course championships, seeing off competition from Vienna. The 2010 edition will be in Dubai. __
