Rome, Aug 1 (DPA) Press conferences with medal winners at the world swimming championships in Rome are generally pretty serious affairs.

Winners analyse their races and give a lot of answers about technique and very seldom do the questions go into the personal.

On Friday the US 4x200m freestyle relay team were very different.

From the time gold medallists Michael Phelps, Ricky Berens, David Walters and Ryan Lochte entered the room, you could feel that they were much more than simply four good swimmers put together on a team to represent their country.

They cracked jokes and came across as a bunch of college kids who were on their way out to have a good time.

Lochte and Walters, who as the new kid on the block was edged on by the other three, had the journalists laughing and smiling about their answers.

Lochte, who, with three gold medals and a silver is the most successful individual swimmer at the championships, admitted that he was nervous during his swim.

'These guys kind of set it up and I just tried my hardest not to lose that race.

'Going into the last 50m I saw the Russian and I was kind of: 'Oh Jesus, this is going to be hard'. So I just put my head down and prayed for the best.'

Walters, who had the fastest 100m of all the swimmers in the final, was teased about that by the others, with Berens saying that he was 'all antsie' after the split.

Walters put it down to his inexperience. 'That was a really nerve racking swim for me. It was my first final swim for me with the relay.

'I was two seconds out faster than I prepared in my 200m which is really not a good thing for a swimmer of my age, kind of really young and naive and out of control.

'Definitely I will remember it as being one of the more painful 200 frees in my career.