Swimming: Becky back in gold

Rebecca Adlington bounced back to form at the European swimming championships by claiming 400m freestyle gold as Great Britain claimed five medals in the final session of action.

Adlington could only manage seventh place in Budapest in the 800m, but showed her Olympic form once again to come home in front in the 400m.

Britain's women's 4x100m medley relay team were also crowned European champions despite finishing the race in second place, as Gemma Spofforth, Kate Haywood, Fran Halsall and Amy Smith had their silver upgraded after the Russian quartet were disqualified for a faulty changeover.

The session took Britain's medal tally to 18 - beating their previous best of 13 - and the six golds, six silvers and six bronzes placed them third in the medals table behind France (8-7-6) and Russia (7-4-1).

All eyes were on double Olympic Adlington today, even more so given the withdrawal of world champion Federica Pellegrini, but it was Frenchwoman Ophelie Cyriell Etienne who took the lead as she set off at a blistering pace.

Adlington had caught up by the final turn and touched in four minutes 4.55 seconds, 0.85secs ahead.

Pressure

"That meant so much to me. It's better to come back here smiling than crying like I did after the 800m," said Adlington. "That was such a tough race, it's all mental and my head was messed up - I knew I could go faster than that.

"I've got to stop worrying about other things - I just relaxed then and really enjoyed that race. Everybody's expecting so much of me, I don't want to let people down but I let myself down when I think about everybody else who I'm letting down."

World silver medallist Jo Jackson, whose season has been decimated by illness and asthma, was fifth in 4mins 09.14secs.

Not to be outdone, the women's medley relay squad claimed gold in the very next race after their initial silver medal was upgraded.

Gemma Spofforth, winner of a gold and silver in Budapest, gave the team a clear lead on the backstroke leg before Kate Haywood, 50m breaststroke silver medallist, was caught by double champion Yuliya Efimova.

Halsall, reluctantly on the butterfly leg, brought the quartet just about level but Amy Smith was just edged out by the Russians.

However, a faulty takeover meant it was the British who ended up at the top of the podium.

Fourth medal

Halsall got the session off to a good start when she claimed her fourth medal of the competition in the 50m freestyle, her effort of 24.67s good enough for third and just 0.01 off silver with Therese Alshammar first home.

Haywood clinched the silver in the 50m breaststroke to go some way to making amends for her disqualification in the 100m.

The 23-year-old, who is still not fully fit following hip surgery, was a clear second in 31.12 with Yuliya Efimova in a class of her own as she completed a 50m/100m double.

Ellen Gandy marked her 19th birthday with third place in the 200m butterfly after controlling the first 100m, where she turned sixth, before coming through in the second part of the race to touch in 2:07.54.

The race was won by Katinka Hosszu, the Hungarian claiming her third gold medal of the week. The men's medley relay were fourth while Simon Burnett was eighth in the 50m freestyle.