Cameron van der Burgh, from South Africa, established two new World Records in the fifth leg of the FINA/ARENA Swimming World Cup 2008, held in Moscow (RUS) on November 8-9. In the men’s 50m breaststroke, Van der Burgh clocked 26.08, bettering the former WR set in January 2006 by Ukrainian Oleg Lisogor (26.17), while in the 100m breaststroke the South African touched in 56.88, improving the best world mark (57.47) obtained by Ed Moses (USA) in January 2002.

With his 50m breaststroke performance, Van der Burgh established the best male performance of the meet (1056 points) and managed to climb to the lead of the World Cup overall ranking (115 points).

Also in the men’s field, Oussama Mellouli (TUN), the 1500m free Olympic champion in Beijing, obtained four more victories in this World Cup – in the 400m and 1500m free, as well as in the 200m and 400m individual medley. He has now a total of 22 wins in the five legs of the competition. Robert Hurley and Matt Jaukovic, both from Australia, got two triumphs in Moscow and complete the top-3 of the male’s overall ranking (Hurley is second with 76 points and Jaukovic is third with 70).

Among women, the local star Valentina Artemyeva was the ‘most valuable swimmer’, establishing a new World Cup record in the 50m breaststroke – the Russian clocked 29.86, faster than the time (30.03) set by Australian Leisel Jones in November 2007. With this result, Artemyeva also got the best female performance of the meet (1021 points).

In the overall ranking, Australian Marieke Guehrer continues to lead (116 points), after being the third best performer in Moscow. She is followed by Therese Alshammar (SWE, 2007 winner), who was the second best in the Russian capital and now has 65 points. In third, remains Katheryn Meaklim (RSA), with 42 points.