Contributed by reader

Earlier this week, Singapore's Tao Li swam 56.85 seconds in the 100m Butterfly, a time which put her in the top-ten of the world.

Last night in Berlin at the FINA Swimming World Cup, the pint-sized swimmer took another chunk off that personal best to thump rivals with a time of 56.28sec, setting a new World Cup record. South Africa's Amanda Loots (58.05sec) touched the wall in second place a good 1.8 seconds later, followed by Petra Granlund (58.21sec) of Sweden in third.

Li's time is the third fastest ever for the Shortcourse (25m pool) event, bettering the previous mark set by American Natalie Coughlin (56.34sec) in New York (2002) by 0.06 seconds, and a mere 0.54 seconds away from Australian Olympian Libby Trickett's World Record.

Earlier that day, Tao Li had qualified 5th for the final (59.92sec) behind Brazil's Gabriella Silva (58.75), Germany's Daniela Samulski (58.90), Loots (59.25) and Granlund (59.47) in the preliminaries.

In the 50m Butterfly the next day, Tao Li came 3rd in a race that saw Marieke Guerher of Australia set a new World Record (24.99secs).

Tao Li will now return to Singapore where she will continue with her studies and begin training for the World Championships next July.