Michael Phelps scrapes through to 200m butterfly final in Berlin

MICHAEL Phelps scraped through to the 200m butterfly final as the eighth fastest qualifier at the short course World Cup in Berlin.

SMALL IMPROVEMENT: Michael Phelps scrapes through to the 200m butterfly final at the Swimming World Cup in Berlin (Getty Images)

The 14-time Olympic champion finished second in his heat in 1:53.82 minutes - pipping Australian teenager Lachlan Staples to the final qualification spot by just 0.15 seconds.

Phelps is the first to admit he isn't in the greatest shape at present and has insisted on competing in a non-textile swimsuit in Berlin, just as he did at the Stockholm World Cup event during the week.

Meanwhile, Brits Fran Halsall and Lizzie Simmonds both continued their form from Stockholm to qualify for two finals in Germany.

Halsall, who set a new European short course 100m freestyle record in Sweden, qualified for both the 100m butterfly and 50m freestyle finals while Simmonds, who scooped a gold and silver herself in Stockholm, qualified for the 200m medley and 200m backstroke.

There were also two new records in the morning session as Russia's Sergey Fesikovk knocked 0.2 secs off American Ryan Lochte's 100m medley record with a swim of 50.95 secs.

And in the 200m breaststroke, South African Neil Versfeld chipped 0.11 secs off his own World Cup record time from Stockholm with a swim of 2:02.56 mins.