Melissa Franklin (USA) cracked the world short-course record with a 2:00.03 victory over 200m backstroke at the Berlin round of the Arena World Cup today.

The effort was the first world record of the season and the first solo effort by a woman in a short-course or long-course pool since shiny suits were banned on January 1, 2010. The moment also delivered a $10,000 world-record bonus cheque - and a first world record on the account of Colorado coach Todd Schmitz, who was as thrilled as the bubbly trend-setter herself (see interview below).

Franklin's splits: 28.64; 58.86 (30.22); 1:29.61 (30.75); 2:00.03; 30.42.

"It's such a great pool, such a great time … its just incredible," said Franklin, world long-course champion in Shanghai last July, post victory before cupping her mouth with her hand, hardly daring to believe that she had made the world record book for the first time. 

Franklin, 16, just about needed to go record pace just to win the race: silver went to Belinda Hocking (AUS) in 2:01.24, a national record, bronze to Elizabeth Simmonds (GBR) in 2:02.54. 

Having already won her own bronze in the 200m freestyle behind a world textile best from Allison Schmitt (USA), Franklin was inflamed for her crack at the record. On her way to the standard, she clocked the fastest split in the final on each of the four 50s.

The world record had stood at 2:00.18 to Japan's Shiho Sakai since the last season of shiny suits at the same meet in Berlin in 2009. Only three other women have ever broken 2:01 - Shiho, Olympic champion Kirsty Coventry (ZIM) and Elizabeth Simmonds (GBR), all while wearing a poly booster suit of the kind now banned. 

The best in textile suit had stood at 2:01.67 to Alexianne Castel (FRA) since she pipped Franklin for the world s/c crown in Dubai in December last year. What a difference a year makes to a teenager on a trajectory to her first Olympic Games in London next year.

On that score, Schmitz has some calculations to do: the 200 free and 100 back are same day; the 200 back and 100 free are same day. Which to go for. The coach, brimming with the buzz of the backstroke bonanza his charge had just delivered, he told SwimNews: "We're keeping our options open."

There will be much talk of the female Phelps on the way to London 2012, such is Franklin's excellence and versatility (Schmitz rules out breaststroke solos and the long medley and rules in just about everything else…), not to mention progress since she raced in two events at 2008 Olympic trials a year after having set that as her goal, aged 12. But on the many golden prospects of his charge, he says: "She doesn't want to hear that. I want Missy Franklin to be the best that she can be. To work on expectation is not fair."

There are targets, however, and those include making all three relays for the US at London 2012, a feat that would, as an American, almost certainly boost her medal count by three with a strong shot at gold each strike.

Nothing, but nothing, is taken for granted, the coach emphasises. With the US trials - known as the toughest meet in the world - to get through, his assessment is a bread-and-butter, take-it-as-read state of affairs among Americans who can list the world record holders who missed the cut.

With a nod to his own world-record holder, he had expected Franklin to fire that way in Moscow midweek after a 2:02 heats effort. It wasn't to be, the teenager on 2:03 in the final. Schmitz said: "It's all about the race. Records are just what happens and that's why I tell my kids that if they're feeling fine and going well, go for it. It could come in heats, in semis, in the final." Equally, a good swim is a fragile thing: "You can slip on a wall, you can cough through the night, there's a whole bunch of stuff that can keep you from it."

Franklin blurted through waves of laughter post-race: "I had no idea. I didn't even know what a world record was!" Schmitz touched the truth in there when he noted that Franklin has scant experience of short-course to the extent that she would not have had any expectations on where she should be on the clock - no limits, then, either, though the coach believed that she would be "disappointed that it wasn't 1:59-point … but that's what makes her hungry".

Franklin's strengths once in the water, says the coach, are clear: "I'm confident that she can probably beat anyone in the world between flags [into and off walls]. We've been focussed on that for two years. She can come home harder than anyone in the world. She manages her energy levels really well."

Having lived a sporting lifetime - she has been in Schmitz's programme since she was 7 - at altitude in Colorado (higher than the Pan Am Games currently on in Mexico), Franklin is on a high when it comes to competing at sea level. 

Schmitz does not talk records with Franklin. They are, he said "just a product of what she does … she doesn't read articles, doesn't look at the psyche sheet, she swims in her own lane and swims her own race". He laughed as he recalled it having always been that way: when she was 11, the coach turned to her to talk through a race 10mins out from the start. Franklin, he said, turned to him and explained: "It's too early for me to talk about the race." Three minutes before being called out, she turned to Schmitz and said: "Ok, so what do we do here?"

"She's good at managing her goals," Schmitz notes. School work too. She's missing five days (not 8 as she would have she gone to race at Pan Ams) of school to be on tour. "It's tough. It's definitely strenuous, no question," says the coach, who will give Franklin next Tuesday off to recover before its back to business as usual. 

Beyond the odd 5am starts that keep the majority of us from a bubbly outlook on life, Franklin is a hive of enthusiasm (by September 3, start-back day for the new season after a break in Hawaii, she was mailing the coach in pleading terms to get back in). Her first-time round thrill for all things on her youthful journey is contagious, says Schmitz.

Sprinter Kara Lynn Joyce, in her mid 20s, has joined his squad this season. It was when the group was bound for a camp in Australia that Joyce rediscovered the worth of getting excited by the kind of things folk tend to take more for granted as they get older. Like travel. One morning at training Franklin turned to her and said 'wow, we'll be going to Australia in three weeks' time…'. Yep, thought Joyce - that is indeed something worth getting excited about and feeding on. 

There's another reason now for the Colorado squad to be thrilled by events: they will have a world-record setter in their midst next week, the first one for Schmitz. "It's pretty unbelievable," he said. "I've been fortunate to be coaching her since she was 7 and knowing since then that she was something pretty special."