The United States broke swimming's oldest world record to win the women's 4x200 metres freestyle relay Olympic gold medal on Wednesday.

Natalie Coughlin, Carly Piper, Dana Vollmer and Kaitlin Sandeno clocked seven minutes 53.42 to take 2.05 seconds off the mark set by East Germany 17 years ago to the night.

The Chinese team of Zhu Yingwen, Xu Yanwei, Yang Yu and Pang Jiaying were second in 7:55.97 to take the silver.

Franziska Van Almsick, Petra Dallmann, Antje Buschschulte and Hannah Stockbauer took bronze for Germany in 7:57.35.