"Alabama Whippet" upstages Popov

It was the dual Olympic 50m-100m champion’s first loss in a major sprint since before he came to prominence in 1991.

At the other end of the spectrum, there were tears of joy for French swimmer Roxane Maracineanu who broke a 25-year gold drought for France at a World Championship, winning the 200m backstroke in national record time.

Pilczuk and Brooke Bennett’s 800m freestyle victories lifted the US to 12 gold, four silver and four bronze medals with Sunday’s finals to close the meet. Australia are next with four gold, five silver and six bronze.

It was a big night for Europe with Germany, buoyed by the return from injury of world record holder Franziska Van Almsick, ending the United States’ winning run of relays at the meet.

The German team of Van Almsick, Dagmar Hase, Silvia Szalai and Kerstin Kielgass crushed the US team to win the 200m freestyle relay in eight minutes 01.46 seconds. It was Germany’s first gold medal in pool here.

Dutchman Marcel Wounda swam with the excruciating pain of a hand injury on the way to his breakthrough world championship triumph in the 200m medley.

Wounda came home strongly to beat Frenchman Xavier Marchand in 2:01.66. Third was American veteran Ron Karnaugh in 2:01.89.

Pilczuk, a 26-year-old one-lap specialist and last year’s Pan Pacific Championship gold medalist, dethroned Popov by 0.14 seconds in winning the gold medal in a personal best of 22.29s.

Popov was gracious in defeat, but said his lack of competition in the 50m had contributed to his downfall.

Maracineanu became the queen of French swimming when the La Marseillaise played for the first time in the championship’s 25-year history.

In an emotional triumph, 22-year-old Maracineanu stood proudly on the victory podium with tears in her eyes savouring her accomplishment.

The Romanian-born Maracineanu pipped Germany’s Dagmar Hase by 0.19 seconds in the French record time of 2:11.26 to register a famous victory for France.

Van Almsick, the 19-year-old glamour queen of German swimming, broke her left wrist in a motorcycle accident last May and it was touch-and-go until a few months ago whether she would swim in Perth.