Sprenger has stranglehold on main event Christian Sprenger competes in the semi-finals of the men's 100-metre breaststroke at the FINA World Championships in Barcelona. OLYMPIC silver medallist Christian Sprenger has thrown out a challenge to the world after gapping all the contenders in the 100m breaststroke semi-finals at the world swimming championships in Barcelona today. Like his training partner, sprinter Cate Campbell, Sprenger took a stranglehold on his main event on the first night of competition. He was clearly the fastest man into the final, clocking 59.23sec, half a second ahead of the next best competitors, Olympic champion Cameron van der Burgh and American Kevin Cordes (both 59.78sec). "I've put myself in a good position for tomorrow night but I still see Cameron as the favourite as he is the Olympic champion," Sprenger said. I walked out on pool deck tonight and felt very comfortable and just tried to stick to my race plan, put up the walls (on either side of his lane) and not worry about who was around me. But they may well be worrying about him in the final. Teenager Jordan Harrison found the 400m freestyle final a bridge too far in his first appearance at the world championships. Harrison, 18, qualified strongly for the final in 3:46.85, close to his personal best and third fastest of the heats, but found he did not yet have the strength to back up for a second high quality 400m in a day. He faded to equal sixth in the final (3:48.40) as his occasional training partner at the Gold Coast, the Olympic champion Sun Yang, dominated the race. Sun, 22, won by more than three seconds (3:41.59) from multi-talented Japanese Kosuke Hagino (3:44.82) and American newcomer Connor Jaeger (3:444.85). Australian champion David McKeon was left to wonder what might have been if he had put a better heat swim together. McKeon, 22, missed the final but his best time this year (3:43.71) would have won him the silver medal. The same applies to Bronte Barratt, who's best time this year of 4:03.52 would have won her the bronze medal if she had made it to the final. Instead that event crowned a new distance queen in American teenager Katie Ledecky who became the first woman in history to break four minutes for 400m freestyle without the aid of the polyurethane bodysuit. Ledecky,16, was a surprise Olympic gold medallist in the 800m freestyle last year but was again dazzling in this event, clocking 3:59.82, just outside Federica Pellegrini's supersuited world record of 3:59.15. Given her youth, Ledecky will surely get there. She was a class above the field in this event.