South Africa’s Paralympic star Natalie du Toit dominated the women’s S1-S10 race winning in a time of 1 hour 00min 22sec to finish more than six minutes ahead of silver medallist Elodie Lorandie of France and bronze medallist Sanja Milojevic of Croatia.

In the women’s S11-S13 race, Taigan van Rosmalen of the Netherlands was the only competitor and finished in a time of 1:17:35.51.

In the men’s S11-S13 race, Russian Sergey Punko claimed victory in a time of 59min 58.19sec and ahead of Spain’s Enrique Floriano in second and Germany’s Robert Doerries in third.

Meanwhile, Australia’s Brenden Hall won the men’s S1-S10 race in a close finish that saw him just hold off Emanuel Goncalves Portugal.

Joe Wise of the United States came in third.

With a total of 649 athletes from 53 countries competing in 181 medal events, the 2010 IPC Swimming World Championships were the biggest ever.

Xavier Gonzalez, the IPC chief executive, expressed his delight with the competition.

Gonzalez said: "The IPC is very proud to announce that these have not only been the biggest IPC Swimming World Championships ever but also the most successful."

During the six days of competition inside the Pieter van den Hoogenband stadium, more than 6,500 spectators came to watch the outstanding performances by the swimmers.

Ukraine topped the medal tally with 58 medals, 21 of which were gold.

The United States took second place in the tally with 20 gold medals to finish just one ahead of Russia who claimed 19 gold medals.

It was also United States star Mallory Weggemann, who swims in the S7 disability category, who was the most successful athlete of these World Championships as she won eight gold medals, as well as a silver, and broke nine world records.

The competition was also a huge success in terms of media coverage.

Channel 4, the national rights holder for the London 2012 Paralympic Games, covered the Championships live on Thursday (August 19) via a live stream on their website while the will broadcast a highlights summary is due to be screened on August 30.

Meanwhile, ABC from Australia broadcasted a 30-minutes highlights summary every day on ABC 2, while Globo TV from Brazil covered the Championships every day live on its Sports channel Sport TV.

TVE from Spain showed 18 minutes of highlights every day and Dutch cable TV channel GoedTV offered daily live coverage of the Championships.

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