**Olympic superstar Michael Phelps has broken the 100m butterfly world record.**The 24-year-old American, who has won 14 Olympic gold medals, lowered countryman Ian Crocker’s four-year-old mark of 50.40 seconds, clocking 50.22.
Phelps’ win at the US trials in Indianapolis secures him a place in the 100m butterfly at the World Championships in Rome later this month.
Phelps has recently served a three-month ban after he was pictured apparently smoking cannabis.
Thursday’s success takes Phelps’s current tally of world marks to five, along with the 200m freestyle, 200m butterfly and the 200m and 400m individual medley.
He won the 100m butterfly at both the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, but had been unable to snatch Crocker’s record.
Phelps became the most successful Olympian in history when he won eight gold medals in Beijing last August to add to the six he claimed in Athens four years previously.
Tyler McGill was second in 51.06, with Aaron Peirsol third in 51.30.