Ian Thorpe maintained his dominance over Pieter van den Hoogenband in the 200m freestyle, beating the Dutchman for the second time in a week at the World Cup.

Van den Hoogenband took both swimmers out under Thorpe's world record pace after 50 metres but they fell off the rate at the halfway mark with the Dutchman still ahead.

But Thorpe powered past his rival in the second half of the race to win in 1mins 41.69secs, more than half a second outside the record of 1:41.10 he set in the same Berlin Arena pool in 2000.

Van den Hoogenband took silver in 1:42.45 with Kvetoslav Svoboda from the Czech Republic third in 1:44.91.

It was Thorpe's fourth gold medal from the three World Cup short course meetings in the last week, adding to his 200m freestyle win in Paris and 200m medley and 400m freestyle victories in Stockholm.

Felicity Galvez was the only other Australian medallist on the final day of the World Cup series, winning her third bronze this week, in the 200m butterfly.

Over the three meetings in Europe this week, the young Australian team won four gold, two silver and eight bronze, with breaststrokers Jim Piper and Tarnee White picking up a silver and a bronze each while Josh Krogh won three bronze.

American Lindsay Benko became the first woman to break four minutes for the 400m freestyle when she smashed Claudia Poll's world record by half a second, clocking 3:59.53.

Her swim, however, wasn't enough to secure her the $US50,000 for the best individual performance of the seven meeting series, which went to Britain's Alison Sheppard for her 24.05 in the 50m freestyle.

Thorpe's swim was enough to earn him the men's prize but he was ineligible because he did not compete in the American leg, so the $US50,000 went to German favourite Thomas Rupprath for his 50.76 in the 100m backstroke.

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