THE SEOUL GAMES / DAY 5 : Swimming : Darnyi Swims to Gold Medal in World-Record Time

Tamas Darnyi of Hungary lowered his own world record in the men’s 400-meter individual medley Wednesday afternoon at the Olympic Indoor Swimming Pool, leaving the field behind in the backstroke leg and setting the record at 4 minutes 14.75 seconds.

David Wharton of USC won the battle for the silver medal with a time of 4:17.36, just beating out bronze medalist Stefano Battistelli of Italy.

The second world record of the day was set by East Germany’s Silke Hoerner, who won the gold in the women’s 200-meter breaststroke in 2:26.71, beating the record of Canada’s Allison Higson.

Higson was in the final heat, but she finished well out of the running. She was seventh in 2:29.60, leaving the silver medal to China’s Xiao Min Huang and the bronze to Bulgaria’s Antoaneta Frenkeva.

Wharton, who set the world record in the 400 individual medley last summer at the Pan Pacific Games, had only 5 days to enjoy the record before Darnyi lowered it at the European Championships. And Darnyi lowered it again . . . in very impressive fashion.

Wharton, who led through the first 100 meters of butterfly but dropped to third place after the second 100 meters (breaststroke), said: “I planned on being no more than 1 second behind Darnyi at the 200, so I went out as hard as I could on the butterfly. He has a very strong backstroke, so I hoped to get enough of a lead on the fly to hold him off on the backstroke. It didn’t work. His backstroke was too strong.”

Still, it was an Olympic swimming medal for the United States, and those have been surprisingly hard to come by.

Mary Wayte, the defending gold medalist in the women’s 200-meter freestyle, made a strong start along with Mitzi Kremer in the event Wednesday. But they were out too fast and faded over the last length of the pool as East German Heike Friedrich came on to win the gold in 1:57.65, just .1 seconds off her own world record.

East German Manuela Stellmach won the bronze in 1:59.01, just edging out Wayte, who was fourth in 1:59.04.

The silver medal went to Silvia Poll of Costa Rica, who gave her country its first ever Olympic medal with a time of 1:58.67.

Kremer, who didn’t make the final in her first event, the women’s 100-meter freestyle, finished sixth.

There were no U.S. women in the final heat of the 200-meter breaststroke. Susan Rapp, a member of the 1984 Olympic team, finished fifth in her consolation heat. Tracey McFarlane, who recently gained U.S. citizenship so that she could compete, finished sixth in the consolation heat.