Portland’s Ian Crocker earned a silver medal for his second-place finish in the 50-meter butterfly Monday at the world championships in Barcelona, Spain.

Crocker finished the event in 23.62 seconds, behind Australia’s Matthew Welsh, who established a world record of 23.43 in winning the gold.

Welsh, a backstroke specialist, had to slowest time of the top eight qualifiers.

Fellow Australian Geoff Huegill, who set the previous record of 23.47 at the last worlds in Fukuoka, Japan, finished fourth despite holding the second seed.

Crocker clocked a 23.47 in the semifinals Sunday and had the top seed going into Monday’s final.

Crocker, an Olympic gold medalist in the 400 medley relay and Cheverus graduate who will be a senior at the University of Texas this fall, will likely swim in the 100-meter fly preliminary heats Friday morning. He could also swim for the U.S. in Sunday’s medley relay event.

The championships also featured two other world records from an Australian and one Japanese swimmer.

The world marks fell in about 50 minutes on a day when Jenny Thompson won the gold medal for the United States in the 100 butterfly.

Leisel Jones set the mark in the women’s 100 breaststroke semifinals. Kosuke Kitajima broke the record in capturing the gold medal in the men’s 100 breaststroke.

Jones was timed in the second semifinal heat of the 100 breaststroke, beating the record of 1:06.52 set in 1999 by Penelope Heyns of South Africa.

“I think it was seeing Matt set a world record that inspired me,” Jones said.

Kitajima was timed in 59.78 in the 100 breaststroke. The Japanese eclipsed the record of 59.94 set by Roman Sloudnov of Russia in Fukuoka in 2001. Brendan Hansen of the United States took the silver in 1:00.21, with the bronze going to James Gibson of Britain in 1:00.37.

Thompson, an eight-time Olympic champion, captured her first major individual gold since 1998. All eight of her Olympic titles have come in relays.

Thompson’s time of 57.96 seconds beat silver medalist Otylia Jedrzejczak of Poland (58.22) and bronze medalist Martina Moravcova of Slovakia (58.24).

“It’s great to come back after a year and a half off and have this kind of success, so I’m really happy,” said Thompson, who recently completed her second year of medical school and is planning to break from her studies to compete in next year’s Athens Olympics.

“It was very close and I put my head down for the last four strokes, which may not have been smart,” she added.

Yana Klochkova of Ukraine won the women’s 200 individual medley in 2:10.75, the third fastest time ever. Alice Mills of Australia claimed silver in 2:12.75 and Zhou Yafei of China took the bronze in 2:12.92.

Thompson’s teammate Natalie Coughlin finished eighth out of eight swimmers in the 100 butterfly final.