Phelps, Hansen close Pan Pacific Champs with world records

Victoria (Canada), Aug 21: Americans Michael Phelps and Brendan Hansen closed out the 2006 Pan Pacific swimming championships with world record-setting victories here. Hansen lowered his own 200m breaststroke world record for the second time in 15 days, clocking a time of 2min 08.50sec, almost a quarter-second better than the 2:08.74 he set at the US championships on August 5. "We make it look easy, but it`s really hard and a lot of hard work went into that," he said of the five world records the US men set in four days of competition. "Right now we`ll just go back to the drawing board to see how low we can make these records." Hansen finished 2.37 seconds ahead of Olympic champion and former world record-holder Kosuke Kitajima of Japan and three seconds in front of teammate Scott Usher. Meanwhile, Phelps set his second individual world record of the meet with a signature storming finish to edge fellow American Ryan Lochte in the men`s 200m individual medley. "When we get in the water and race, it brings out the best in both of us," Phelps said. "Ryan definitely helped me a lot. Its more exciting when you go head to head like that. It really gets the crowd up and that definitely had an impact." Phelps`s time of 1:55.84 was one-tenth of a second better than the world record he set three years ago. It came four days after he opened the meet by lowering his own 200m butterfly world mark. The six-time olympic gold medallist also led off the US world record-setting 4x100m free relay squad, and won gold in the 400m medley and 4x200m free relay. Bureau Report