Leisel Jones crowned herself queen of the pool on Tuesday night with a second world record performance as the Australians cracked their 50th gold medal of the Commonwealth Games and swept all before them in an emotion-charged cycling program.

Jones capped a dream comeback from her disappointments at the Athens Olympics by lifting her fourth gold.

With a golden trifecta of individual breaststroke titles already in her swag, she swam the breaststroke leg as Australia's all-conquering women sliced more than a second off the world 100m medley relay record.

"It's been a fantastic week ... it's topped off the great preparation we've all had," said an elated Jones, the only individual world record-breaker of the meet, who stood alone as the star of the swim program.

Freestyle champion Libby Lenton, who brought the relay team home in style, won five golds in Melbourne with two individual and three relay titles.

"It's been such a special week for me but I wouldn't have got three of those gold medals if it weren't for the girls I get to swim with in the relays," Lenton said.

Jess Schipper also finished on a buoyant note, completing the 100m-200m butterfly double then swimming in the world record-breaking relay team for her third title.

And teenage sensation Stephanie Rice completed a fairytale Games debut by winning the 400m individual medley to show her 200 IM victory was no fluke.

Australia's women netted no fewer than 16 gold medals in Melbourne.

It was just as well they performed so mightily, for the cream of the men swimmers - minus Grant Hackett and Ian Thorpe - very nearly finished without a gold for the first time in the 76-year history of the Games.

Their blushes were spared in the last event of the meet when Michael Klim, Matt Welsh, Brenton Rickard and Eamon Sullivan took out the 4x100m medley relay.

Australia's cyclists hit the road with a vengeance earlier on Tuesday, winning both time trials and five of the six medals on offer, but it was the late Amy Gillett who occupied their thoughts.

Gold medallist Oenone Wood was close to tears as she remembered Gillett, who died last July in a German crash that hospitalised five team-mates.

"Amy should have been here today and it's really sad she wasn't," Wood said.

"All we can do is continue to ride and I guess take motivation from the fact that Amy was such a fantastic friend to us all and such a fantastic rider."

Australian women's coach Warren McDonald said: "Amy's up there today, shining down on our girls."

Wood led Australia's clean sweep of the women's 29km race, with veteran Kathy Watt second and Sara Carrigan taking bronze.

Queenslanders Nathan O'Neill and Ben Day maintained the medal rush by finishing first and second in the men's 40km race.

That gave the host nation nine of the 14 cycling golds so far, with the mountain bike and road races still to come.

"You can win bike races all around the world," said O'Neill.

"But until you get into a situation like this ... where you're racing in a home Commonwealth Games in front of a home crowd in a specialist event and the last rider to start, it doesn't get any more pressure-filled than that."

Belarus-born shooter Lalita Yauhleuskaya won her second gold for Australia in the 25m pistol event, and former Armenian Alex Karapetyan heaved his way to victory in the 94kg weightlifting division.

Karapetyan defended the title he won in Manchester in 2002, with compatriot Simon Heffernan taking silver, before Deborah Lovely made it two out of two today by winning the women's 75kg event.

At the MCG, Australian Sarah Jamieson was a surprise silver medallist in the women's 1500m, finishing strongly in the inside lane behind England's Lisa Dobriskey.

In basketball, Opals superstar Lauren Jackson guided the home side to Friday's gold medal match with a 105-49 semi-final triumph over Nigeria.

The Opals had been on the road for their first three games of the tournament - in Traralgon, Bendigo and Geelong - and returned today to an adoring capacity crowd in Melbourne.

Jackson, the star attraction, didn't let them down, scoring 37 points in a virtuoso performance.

The men's and women's hockey teams, meanwhile, both maintained their unbeaten records and ensured themselves of semifinal berths.

The Kookaburras trounced England 5-1 with a hat-trick to Nathan Eglington and two goals to Brent Livermore.

The Hockeyroos completed their pool matches with four straight wins when they comfortably accounted for South Africa 3-0 with goals from Suzie Faulkner, Nicole Arrold and Angie Skirving.

Shooter Michael Diamond made sure he enters Wednesday's final rounds of the men's trap near the top of the table after a perfect 25 from 25 in hot conditions at the Melbourne Gun Club.

Diamond, winner of the trap at the two previous Commonwealth Games, has managed 49 out of 50 from his first two rounds.

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