Five gold for Lenton to cap great worlds

MELBOURNE: Libby Lenton claimed the most gold medals by an Australian woman at a world swimming championship with her fifth win in the 50-metres freestyle on Sunday. 

The defending champion held off a hot field to win by nine-hundredths of a second over Sweden's Therese Alshammar and Marleen Veldhuis of the Netherlands. 

Lenton triumphed in a championship record time of 57.15 seconds and finished strongly after Veldhuis led the field to the turn.

She finished the meet with gold medals in the 50/100m freestyles, 100m butterfly and the 100m freestyle and medley relays.   

"Just to finish off the meet with another gold medal is so incredible," said Lenton, who is getting married this month.

"It's definitely pretty special. I am kind of used to having a great meet and then a not so great meet. To have the consistency is fantastic."   

Alshammar came into the event as the 50m butterfly champion, while Veldhuis was the silver-medallist behind Lenton in the 100m freestyle.