Japan’s Kosuke Kitajima underlined his status as the greatest breaststroke swimmer of all time by winning the 200 metres at Beijing’s Water Cube on Thursday morning.

The Tokyo-born 25-year-old added the 200m title to the 100m gold medal he won earlier in the week as he successfully defended the two titles he claimed in Athens four years ago.

Kitajima touched the wall in 2 minutes 07.64 seconds to set a new Olympic record, and though he was 0.13 secs outside his own world record, the dominant display was too good for Australia’s Brenton Rickard and fast-finishing Frenchman Hughes Duboscq, who took the minor placings.

Liu Zige gave China its first swimming gold medal of the Beijing Olympics, winning the women's 200 butterfly in a world record time of 2:04.18. Liu bettered the old mark of 2:05.40 set by Jessicah Schipper of Australia at the 2006 Pan Pacific championships in Canada. Chinese teammate Jiao Liuyang took silver in 2:04.72 and Schipper was third 2:06.26.

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Otylia Jedrzejczak, the defending champion, from Poland finished fourth.

Alain Bernard of France won the 100 freestyle, beating out world record-holder Eamon Sullivan of Australia. Bernard touched in 47.21 seconds, with Sullivan taking the silver in 47.32 American Jason Lezak and Cesar Cielo of Brazil dead-heated for the bronze in 47.67. Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands, the two-time defending champion, was fifth in 47.75, ending his dream of becoming the first man to win the same swimming event in three successive Olympics.

There was better news, though, for Sullivan's former girlfriend Stephanie Rice, the glamour girl of Australian swimming, who got her third gold of the Games in the women's 4 x 200 metres freestyle relay.

The Australian team of Rice, Bronte Barratt, Kylie Palmer and Linda Mackenzie screamed and hugged each other after chopping nearly six seconds off the world record and holding off a strong challenge from the Chinese. Sullivan and Rice had split up just before the Games to concentrate on their events.

With five gold medals and five world records already, Michael Phelps finally had a finals-free morning, though he did coast through to the final of the 200 metres individual medal, one-hundredth of a second behind team-mate Ryan Lochte.

There was good news for Britain in that event, with James Goddard and Liam Tancock both reaching the final.

Gregor Tait also qualified for his second successive Olympic final in the men's 200 metres backstroke and Fran Halsall achieved similar success in the women's 100 metres freestyle.