Swimming: Tancock storms to gold in European record

Liam Tancock continued to prove his world-class credentials last night by winning the 100 metres backstroke at the World Short-Course Championships in Manchester in a European record time. He was followed on to the top of the podium by Rebecca Adlington, 19, who missed a world record by a quarter of a second in the 800m freestyle but won in 8:08.25, 12 seconds inside her previous best.

The 22-year-old Tancock, who became the 50m backstroke world record holder last week at the Olympic trials in Sheffield, led all the way to touch in 50.14secs and lower the European mark set by Thomas Rupprath in 2002.

Tancock was on world record pace at the halfway mark but just slipped outside to finish ahead of American Randall Bal and Stanislav Donets of Russia. Tancock said: "That was really good. It is great to do it in front of a home crowd. Now I need to sit down with my coach Ben Titley as there is lots to improve on. There are split seconds everywhere."

Earlier, Kate Haywood claimed joint silver in the 50m breaststroke behind American Jessica Hardy, who broke the world record.

Haywood was elevated to joint-second place alongside the Australian Sarah Katsoulis following the disqualification of Russian 16-year-old Yuliya Efimova.