ROME, July 30, 2009 (AFP) - Zhao Jing made up for Beijing disappointment on Thursday with a 50m backstroke world title as Chinese women joined the world record party at the swimming World Championships.

"I'm so excited. Let me calm down first," said a tearful Zhao. "It's my first world championship and this was beyond my wildest dreams."

Liu Jing was also living a dream after teaming with Yang Yu, Zhu Qian Wei and Pang Jiaying to capture the women's 4x200m freestyle relay in a world record of 7:42.08.

They conquered their nerves to take 23-hundredths of a second off the world mark set by Australia in winning Olympic gold last year in Beijing, where China were relegated to second.

"This was my first world championships, and I got a gold medal," Liu said. "I never dreamt that it was possible. I was so nervous my hand was trembling even in the water."

Liu wasn't on the silver-medal team in Beijing, and said this Chinese foursome are still getting to know each other.

"It's the first time we've worked together, but we trust each other," she said.

Zhao knew going in she had her work cut out for her, after the world record fell twice in the 50m backstroke semi-finals.

Germany's Daniela Samulski broke it first with a time of 27.39 and Anastasia Zueva of Russia then clocked 27.38 in the second semi.

Samulski improved on that again, capturing silver in 27.23sec, with China's Gao Chang third in 27.28.

Zhao regained a record she had held earlier this year alongside Sophie Edington.

Even more importantly, she helped sink the memory of her 100m backstroke failure at the 2008 Olympics, where she was disqualified in the heats.

"I've been wanting to prove myself since then and now I've done it," Zhao said after her 27.06sec mark.

With Olympic champion Liu Zige's silver medal behind Jessicah Schipper in the 200m butterfly, Chinese women collected a full set of individual medals on Thursday.

That was one day after Zhang Lin became the first Chinese man to win a world swimming title with his word record win in the 800m freestyle.

"We didn't swim very well this morning in the preliminaries, so we were really nervous tonight," Zhu said. "But we told each other 'We have to do it.'"