Russia's Yulia Pakhalina won the women's three-metre springboard title for an unprecedented fifth time at the European swimming championships in Eindhoven.

Olympic bronze medallist Pakhalina, who won the synchronised springboard with Anastasia Pozdnyakova last Tuesday, completed a golden double when she amassed 347.40 points from her five final dives to win from Germany's Katja Dieckow.

Dieckow, bronze medallist on the one-metre springboard, compiled 330.80 points in a competition marked by the failure of the electronic scoreboard. Olena Federova of Ukraine took bronze with 319.70 just ahead of newly crowned platform champion Tania Cagnotto of Italy.

"The scoreboard failure didn't affect me because I don't look at it during competition," Pakhalina, who was world three-metre springboard champion in 1998, said.

She previously won the European three-metre title in 1997, 2000, 2002 and 2004 and was silver medallist in 1995. No other woman has won it more than twice. She has a total European medal count of eight golds and three silvers.

The 30-year-old Russian's dominance on the three-metre springboard in Europe mirrors that of her 34-year-old compatriot Dmitry Sautin, who won the men's three-metre event for the sixth time on Friday followed by synchronised springboard gold on Saturday. Sautin, Olympic platform champion in 1996, now has a European tally of 17 medals, 12 of them gold.

Reuters