BARCELONA, 21 July 2003 — Ian Thorpe claimed a historic 400 meters freestyle title hat trick yesterday, but his bid for seven world championship gold medals ended little more than one hour later when he had to settle for fourth place with the Australian 4x100m relay.

Wearing a full body suit, the “Thorpedo” came nowhere near his world record of 3 minutes 40.08, but comfortably won the 400m in 3:42.58 minutes — the first swimmer to win the same individual event three consecutive times.

Fellow-Australian Grant Hackett had to settle for silver like two years ago in Fukuoka, Japan, in 3:45.17. The bronze went to Romanian Dragos Coman with 3:46.87 minutes. Thorpe, 20, won two golds in 1998 and six of seven events in 2001.

He hoped to get to the top of the podium in all his seven races in the Palau Sant Jordi, but the dream ended in the relay where the Aussies even missed the bronze medal, beaten by one-hundredth of a second by France.

Up front the grand old man of freestyle swimming, Alexander Popov, anchored Russia to a surprise gold in 3:14.06 minutes along with Andrei Kapralov, Ivan Usov and Denis Pimankov.

The US won silver with 3:14.80 and the French quartet clocked 3:15.66 minutes.

In the women’s events, German Hannah Stockbauer swam to her third career gold, following the 2001 titles over 800m and 1,500m, in the 400m freestyle with 4:06.75 minutes. Stockbauer won a fierce three-woman battle, leaving only the silver for Hungarian talent Eva Risztov (4:07.24) and the bronze for Diana Munz of the United States (4:07.67).

There was no such luck for the Germans in the women’s 4x100m relay, as veteran Jenny Thompson passed Sandra Voelker on the home leg to anchor the US team, which also featured Natalie Coughlin, Lindsay Benko and Rhiannon Jeffrey, to gold in 3:38.09. The 2001 winners and world record holders Germany had to settle for silver with 3:38.73, just ahead of Australia who clocked 3:38.83 minutes.

In semifinal action, Japan’s Kosuke Kitajima missed the 100m breast stroke world record by just four-hundredth with a super swim of 59.98 seconds.

Earlier yesterday, Mathew Helm and Robert Newbery won Australia’s first gold of the day when they dominated the men’s 10m synchronized diving with 384.60 points for the gold medal.

Roman Volodkov and Anton Sakharov won silver for Ukraine with 372.60 points. China’s Tian Lian and Hu Jia grabbed the bronze with 367.14 points.

China did better in the women’s 3m event, in the form of gold for Wu Minxia and Guo Jingjing with 357.30 points. Russia’s Yulia Pakhalina and Vera Ilia won silver with 321.24 points and the bronze went to Mexicans Paola Esposito and Laura Sanchez with 299.64 points.

The world championships continue today with four medal events.