Phelps closes worlds with his 5th gold medal

ROME — Michael Phelps and the U.S. 400-meter medley relay team closed the fastest meet in swimming history with an appropriate finish Sunday night — the 43rd world record.

Phelps earned his fifth gold medal of a world championships that showed he's still got plenty of motivation, even after winning a record eight times at the Beijing Olympics.

Swimming the butterfly leg, Phelps helped the U.S. pull away from Germany and Australia to win in 3 minutes, 27.28 seconds. That easily broke the mark set by the Americans at last summer's Olympics, 3:29.34.

Eric Shanteau, who overcame testicular cancer to swim his best times, picked up the first major gold medal of his career by taking the breaststroke leg, to go along with a silver and bronze in Rome. The other members of the winning team were backstroker Aaron Peirsol and David Walters, swimming the freestyle anchor.

Also Sunday, Ryan Lochte won his fourth gold medal of the championships and Germany's Britta Steffen matched her 50-100 freestyle sweep in Beijing.

No such glory for 42-year-old Dara Torres. The senior citizen of the pool finished last in her only individual final at the Foro Italico.

Taking advantage of Phelps' absence, Lochte added the 400-meter individual medley title to his medal haul at the championships. Lochte also won the 200 IM along with two relay golds, in addition to taking bronze in the 200 backstroke.

Lochte was far off Phelps' world record in the 400 IM, touching first in 4 minutes, 7.01 seconds. Phelps won gold at Beijing in 4:03.84, but decided to scale back his program heading into what will be his final Olympics.

"It definitely felt good to get these wins after coming second to Michael for so long," said Lochte, who broke Phelps' world record in the 200 IM with his rival cheering from the stands. "But I wish he was here swimming just because he's a great competitor and I love racing him. I'm trying to talk him into doing the IM again."

The Americans still went 1-2 even without Phelps. Tyler Clary came on strong in the freestyle to beat Hungary's Laszlo Cseh, taking silver in 4:07.31. Cseh settled for bronze at 4:07.37.

Both were closing fast when Lochte touched.

"I didn't think it was going to hurt that much," the winner said. "When I touched going into the freestyle, I just had a body-length lead and I just thought, 'If this hurts too bad, I'll lose it.' Then, you know, I just gave it everything I had. That's all I could ask for it."