MELBOURNE, March 28 (Xinhua) -- American super-fish Michael Phelps smashed his own world record in the men's 200 meters butterfly in one minute and 52.09 seconds here on Wednesday, which event surprised himself.

"I surprised myself, I went so fast," said the 21-year-old prodigy after clinching his third gold at the World Championships.

One day after breaking Ian Thorpe's world record in the 200 meters freestyle, Phelps showed his preeminence again in his pet event.

The wunderkind was totally unmatched in the pool, breezily throwing the other seven finalists behind by large margin. When he geared up in the final 25 meters, the world record mark was even dropped behind in body length.

Phelps finished his fantastic course in one minute and 52.09 seconds. 3.04 seconds later, the runner up Wu Peng from China touched wall and Russian Nikolay Skvortsov claimed the bronze in 1:55.22.

"I wanted to go 52.00 but I didn't expect to swim 52.00," said Phelps. "I'm showing I'm in solid shape now. I had a really good swim earlier in the season where I broke the world record. I wanted to take it out tonight, so I'm pretty happy."

The versatile swimmer updated his own record to 1:53.80 at the Pan Pacific Championships last August, then sliced 0.09 seconds off it at the Missouri Grand Prix one month ago.

He was the world title winner in the event at the 2001 and 2003 World Championships, but let it off two years ago for tasting more freestyle events.