Australia's newest golden girl Stephanie Rice claimed her second world record at the Olympic swimming trials.

Rice stamped herself as the world's most versatile swimmer by slashing the second oldest record in the books, adding the 200m individual medley mark to the 400m individual medley time she set last Saturday.

The Queensland stunner's effort punctuated a superb night at the pool in which her boyfriend Eamon Sullivan fell just 0.05s shy of the world 100m freestyle mark in his semi-final, still enough to join Bronte Barratt (200m freestyle) and Nick D'Arcy (200m butterfly) in setting new Commonwealth records.

In tonight's final Rice was a 1.4 seconds ahead of world pace at the halfway mark and charged home to touch in 2 minutes 8.92 seconds, 0.80 seconds clear of Chinese swimmer Yan Yan Wu's time set in 1997.

"It's beyond comprehension. The 200IM world record has stood for a long, long time," said Rice, who swam 2.5 seconds quicker than her previous best time set at last year's world championships.

"I actually didn't know who held the world record. I knew it was someone from China but I didn't know who it was, because obviously it happened so long ago.

"I really was trying not to think too much about what happened on the 400IM.

"As excited as I was, I really had to try and focus myself down and focus on the races I had left.

"I'm done now. I've got no more main races, so I'm extremely excited and I'm going to celebrate and enjoy the moment."

Swimming's new power couple, "Steamon", have quickly become the stars of the pool with their record-breaking feats and 19-year-old Rice admits she is simply amazed with her own achievements.

"Beyond my expectations. I was coming into this meet just trying to get my times down to other people in the world so that when I do go to the Olympics I can be more competitive with them," she said of her two world records.

"But I've had the meet of my life and I just hope that I can put together an even better preparation for Olympics and try and do some more PBs.

"I've really set the mark quite high now and I know I'll have to put in an even harder block of training now."

Fellow Queenslander Alicia Coutts (2:11.87) was almost three seconds back in second, enough to secure her first Olympic team selection.

Sullivan put the 100m freestyle world record on notice as a rookie mistake in his semi-final left the West Australian speedster a fingernail short of joining his girlfriend in re-writing the world books tonight.

Sullivan's 47.55s 100m freestyle semi-final time would have been a world record three days ago, but Frenchman Alain Bernard lowered the mark to 47.50 in Eindhoven at the European Championships.

Sullivan says he botched his 50m turn and has more petrol in the tank, setting the scene for a world record breaking night on Wednesday.

"I think I've got a little bit left," said Sullivan.

"There's a few things that probably didn't go to plan. But overall it's a great swim, so no complaints and hopefully I can find a bit more tomorrow." Brisbane's Barratt set a new Commonwealth record in the 200m freestyle final to reverse the result over 400m champion Linda McKenzie.

Barratt's time of 1:56.60 sliced almost half a second off Libby Trickett's (1:57.06) previous record and, although it lifts her to sixth on the all-time world rankings, she doubts it will be good enough to land her on the podium in Beijing in August.

"I honestly don't think that time will get me a medal in Beijing considering the way they're swimming in Europe and America at the moment," said Barratt.

"I will have to swim faster to get a medal but for now I'm just happy with a personal best time." Sunshine Coaster D'Arcy joined the record spree, setting the third Commonwealth benchmark of the night in winning the 200m butterfly in 1:55.10 to book a seat to Beijing alongside runner up Travis Nederpelt (1:56.06).

D'Arcy sliced 0.25s off Kiwi Moss Burmester's previous record set in placing fourth at last year's world titles.

"It's something I have been dreaming about at night," said D'Arcy of making his debut Olympic team.

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