Hayley McGregory, backstroke lead off for the Longhorn Aquatics 4x50m medley relay at the Texas Grand Prix in Austin, clocked 28.00sec to swim 0.09sec inside the world record held by Yang Li (CHN) since last October.

From an Olympic year perspective, far more interesting was her 100m time: McGregory eclipsed her previous best of 1:00.22 with a 59.81 - fifth woman inside the minute - behind a 59.42 for clubmate Kirsty Coventry (ZIM). Natalie Coughlin (USA), Anastasia Zueva (RUS), and Laure Manaudou (FRA) have company in an event that is building to a dam-busting moment. Emily Seebohm (AUS) went a 28.10 50m this week. Interesting times ahead.

Coventry's 100m effort was all the more impressive considering that she had already bolted to a 4:34.25 win in the 400m medley. That was inside her best of 4:36.07 and is third fastest all time behind Katie Hoff and Yana Klochkova and a touch ahead of the banned former world record holder Chen Yan (CHN). Coventry broke Hungarian Krisztina Egerszegi's 1991 world record over 200m back last month.

Elsewhere in Texas, Tara Kirk put in a solid 1:07.39 in the 100m breaststroke, Aaron Peirsol and Longhorns teammate David Cromwell went 53.72 and 53.81 respectively in the 100m backstroke, both coming home in exactly the same split, 27.56; Klete Keller took the 200m freestyle in 1:47.95 to Jayme Cramer's 1:48.35 and 1:48.41 for Matt Grevers, whose Ford Tuscon teammate Adam Ritter clocked 1:48.58 for fourth.