Olympic gold medallist Laure Manaudou swam away from her rivals to win the 200 metres backstroke at the European championships.

The Frenchwoman, taking a break from the 200 and 400 freestyle in which she is world champion and world record-holder, proved equally at ease in the 200 backstroke.

She took charge on the second length at the National Swimming Centre pool and pulled clear to win with plenty to spare in two minutes 7.99 seconds. That made the 21-year-old the fifth fastest woman ever in the event.

Russian Anastasia Zueva, 17, took silver in 2:09.59 and Hungary's Nikolett Szepesi bronze in 2:09.90.

"I surprised myself with this time," Manaudou said.

"I was just aiming at bettering yesterday's time and I didn't expect such a great improvement of about one and half seconds."

Norway's Alexander Dale Oen and France's Hugues Duboscq became only the fourth and fifth men to break the minute mark for the 100 metres breaststroke, the pair neck and neck down the second length and separated by only 0.02 seconds at the touch.

Dale Oen, European silver medallist in 2006, clocked 59.76 and Olympic bronze medallist Duboscq 59.78, both inside the European record of 59.94 set by Russia's Roman Sludnov in Fukuoka in July 2001.

American world champion Brendan Hansen - world record-holder at 59.13 - and Japanese Olympic champion Kosuke Kitajima are the only other swimmers to have dipped under one minute.

"I feel awesome looking at the scoreboard and seeing a time below a minute and a European record. It's a fantastic feeling being the fourth swimmer crashing the minute barrier," Dale Oen said.

Serbia's Milorad Cavic lowered the European 50 butterfly record for the second time in two days to depose Ukraine's Sergiy Breus, gold medallist in 2004 and 2006, as European champion in the one-length race.

Cavic, who clocked 23.25 to break Breus's 23.38 mark in Tuesday's semi-finals, cut the European record to 23.11 - just 0.15 seconds outside the 22.96 world mark of South African world champion Roland Schoeman - with Breus taking silver in 23.48 and Spain's Rafel Munoz bronze.

Chantal Groot and Eindhoven local Inge Dekker pulled off a Dutch one-two in the women's 50 butterfly, Dekker edged out after swimming a 100 freestyle semi-final barely 10 minutes earlier.

Groot, bronze medallist at the last three European championships, finally moved up to gold with a powerful finish which carried her home in 26.03 to Dekker's 26.30.

Sviatlana Khakhlova of Belarus took bronze, relegating Swedish world champion and world record-holder Therese Alshammar to fourth.

Markus Rogan brought Austria their first title of the championships, forging through on the return length to win the men's 100 backstroke from Aristeidis Grigoriadis of Greece, who had been fastest in heats and semi-finals.

Rogan, Olympic double silver medallist in 2004 and three times European 100 backstroke silver medallist, was eighth and last at the halfway mark but accelerated on the second length and touched in 54.03, with Grigoriadis second in 54.27 and defending champion Arkady Vyatchanin of Russia third in 54.45.

Ukraine's Illya Kvasha won the men's one-metre springboard diving title by more than 20 points from 2004 and 2006 champion Joona Puhakka of Finland and 2007 world bronze medallist Christopher Sacchin of Italy.

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Reuters