New York: American Natalie Coughlin surprised herself by breaking her own 100m backstroke world record on Sunday, clocking 59.21 seconds in the preliminaries of the Missouri Grand Prix.

Coughlin, the reigning Olympic champion, took more than two tenths of a second off her previous mark of 59.44 seconds set at the world championships in Melbourne last year.

Coughlin was more than four tenths of a second behind world record pace at the halfway stage but used a strong second leg to set the second world record of the meet.

Zimbabwe’s Kristy Coventry shattered the 200 backstroke record on Saturday. Coventry set the record in 2:6.39 seconds.

The 24-year-old, who lives and trains in the United States, broke the previous mark set by Hungary’s Krisztina Egerszegi in August 1991 by 0.23 seconds.

Coughlin’s world record was the third this weekend globally after Australia’s Eamon Sullivan broke Alexander Popov’s eight-year-old mark for 50 freestyle on Sunday.

Sullivan powered his way down Sydney’s Olympic pool in 21.56 seconds to shave 0.08 off the mark Popov set at Moscow in June, 2000. (Reuters)