Phelps Sets World Record in Butterfly

Michael Phelps withdrew from the 100-meter freestyle at the U.S. national championships Friday because of a sore neck. The 14-time Olympic gold medalist was supposed to swim in the last morning heat, but he was still in pain after waking up a day earlier with a kink on the left side of his neck.

Photo: Phelps Sets World Record in Butterfly

"It was worse this morning," he said.

Phelps said he swam through the pain in setting a world record in the 100 butterfly Thursday night. He received numerous treatments on his neck both Thursday and Friday, The Associated Press reports.

At the 2003 worlds final at Barcelona, Crocker bettered Phelps' 100m fly world record set in the semifinal in the same tournament.

Crocker later lowered the mark to 50.40 in the 2005 worlds at Montreal.

Apart from three relay world marks, the 24-year-old phenom, now owns five individual world records.

Also Thursday, Dara Torres failed to improve the American record at 24.07 in the women's 50-meter freestyle she set at last year's Beijing Olympics where she pocketed the silver medal.

Torres, however, managed to capture the event with a time of 24.43, hiking her total national titles to 16, AHN informs.