Budapest, Jun 21 (IANS): Italian swimmer Thomas Ceccon set a new world record of 51.60 seconds in the men's 100m backstroke on the third day of the 19th FINA World Championships here.

The previous world record holder American Ryan Murphy, who swam then world's best 51.75 at the 2016 Rio Olympics, won the silver in 51.97 and his compatriot Hunter Armstrong took bronze in 51.98 late on Monday.

Italy pocketed three gold medals as Benedetta Pilato won in the women's 100m breaststroke in 1:05.93, beating Anna Elendt of Germany (1:05.98) and Ruta Meilutyte of Lithuania (1:06.02), Xinhua reports.

Giorgio Minisini and Lucrezia Ruggiero added another gold for Italy in the mixed duet technical with a score of 88.5734 points, while Sato Tomoka and Sato Yotaro from Japan finished second with 85.8086 points. China's Shi Haoyu and Zhang Yiyao won the bronze with 84.8232 points.

Katie Ledecky of the United States collected her second gold in the tournament, swimming fastest in the women's 1,500m freestyle in a time of 15:30.15, clearly distancing herself from her fellow American Katie Grimes on 15:44.89. The bronze medal went to Australian swimmer Lani Pallister in 15:48.96.

Regan Smith won another gold medal for the U.S. as she timed 58.22 in women's 100m backstroke for the first place while Kylie Masse of Canada came second with 58.40 and Claire Curzan of the United States in third in 58.67.

In the men's 200m freestyle event, Romania took the gold thanks to the performance of David Popovici, who swam in 1:43.21, beating Hwang Sunwoo from South Korea in 1:44.47 and Tom Dean from Britain in 1:44.98.

In the women's team free combination, Ukraine finished first with 95.0333 points, surpassing Japan (93.5667 points) and Italy (92.0333).