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Records tumble as Cavic, Oen win

Milorad Cavic and Alexander Dale Oen set continental records on Wednesday at the European swimming championships.

Cavic won the 50m butterfly title and Oen won the 100 breaststroke.

Laure Manaudou of France, the Olympic champion in the 400 freestyle, won her eighth career European title and first this year in the 200 backstroke, finishing well clear in 2 minutes, 7.99 seconds.

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

Anastasia Zueva of Russia was second in 2:09.59 and Nikolett Szepesi of Hungary was third in 2:09.90.

Cavic broke the butterfly record for the second time in two days and then said he could have threatened the world record if his finish had been better.

The Serbian swimmer, who was born in California and lives in the US, finished in 23.11 to beat defending champion Sergiy Breus of Ukraine, who was second in 23.48. Rafael Munoz Perez of Spain was third in 23.60.

Oen won the 100 breaststroke in a European record time of 59.76, beating the previous mark of 59.94 set in 2001 by Roman Sloudnov of Russia.

The Norwegian edged Hugues Duboscq for the title by two hundredths of a second. The Frenchman's time of 59.78 made him only the fifth person in an elite club of swimmers to complete the race in less than 1 minute.

Oleg Lisogor of Ukraine was third in 1:00.53.

Markus Rogan of Austria won the men's 100 backstroke in 54.03, powering down the second lap to overtake Aristeidis Grigoriadis, who qualified fastest and turned first but faded to finish second in 54.27.

Defending champion Arkady Vyatchanin was third in 54.45.

Chantal Groot led a Dutch 1-2 in the 50 butterfly, finishing in 26.03 to edge teammate Inge Dekker. Sviatlana Khakhlova of Belarus was third in 26.52 and defending champion and world record holder Therese Alshammar of Sweden finished fourth in 26.69.

In the diving competition, Illya Kvasha took gold in the 1-m springboard with 454.65 points for his first major diving title.
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