Veldhuis doubles her fun

Veldhuis, who brought home a world relay record for the Dutch hosts on Tuesday, hurtled through the first length 0.41 seconds inside world record schedule.

She paid for the effort on the return length, though, as Britta Steffen's 53.30 world record slipped beyond the grasp of the Dutch ace who touched in 53.77.

World silver medallist Veldhuis still won by wide margin as Finland's 2003 world champion Hanna-Maria Seppala took silver in 54.04.

Inge Dekker, Wednesday's 50 butterfly silver medallist and Veldhuis's team mate in the record-breaking 4x100 freestyle relay, claimed bronze in 54.12.

With Steffen among numerous German absentees, Paul Biedermann brought his heavily depleted team their first title of the championships with a rousing victory in the men's 200 metres freestyle.

Biedermann seized his chance after ailing former Olympic champion Pieter van den Hoogenband faded out in Wednesday's heats of an event he has won at four European championships.

Frenchman Amaury Leveaux set the early pace but Biedermann surged past on the last length to win in 1:46.59. Leveaux took silver in 1:46.99 and Italian Massimiliano Rosolino bronze.

Germany, beset by illness, injury and Olympic preoccupations, brought only nine swimmers to Eindhoven and one of them, Helge Meeuw, pulled out of his 50 backstroke title defence in the morning session because of sinusitis.

Hungary scooped two gold medals, with 2007 world bronze medallist Laszlo Cseh retaining his 200 individual medley crown and 20-year-old Gergo Kis winning the men's 800 freestyle, a non-Olympic event.

Romania's Dragos Coman led for most of the 800 but Kis came through in the final 100 to win in 7:51.94. Italy's Samuel Pizzetti won silver in 7:54.09 and Coman clung on for bronze.

Cseh led from start to finish in the 200 individual medley, winning in 1:58.02, with Austria's Dinko Jukic taking silver (1:59.65) and Vyatautas Janusaitis of Lithuania bronze.

It was a great day for the Jukic family, with Dinko's sister Mirna winning the women's 100 breaststroke handsomely in 1:08.18 from Russia's Alena Alexeeva (1:08.91).

Sweden's Anna Lindberg retained her one-metre springboard diving crown by a comfortable margin of over 20 points from Eindhoven-based Hungarian Nora Barta and Germany's Katja Dieckow.