Manaudou embarks on medal quest

Olympic and world champion Laure Manaudou will embark on an eight-event marathon at the European swimming championships in Budapest today.

The 19-year-old Frenchwoman begins her medal quest in the 400 metres individual medley, her hopes raised by the decision of title holder Yana Klochkova to drop the event from her programme.

Ukrainian Klochkova, the Olympic individual medley champion in 2000 and 2004, will defend her 200 individual medley crown.

Manaudou's exhausting schedule also includes the 200, 400 and 800 metres freestyle, 100 metres backstroke, 200 metres individual medley, 4x200 metres freestyle relay and 4x100 metres medley relay.

She is defending champion in the 400 freestyle and 100 backstroke, having established her international reputation at the last edition of these championships in Madrid in 2004.

Since then she has won the Olympic and world 400 freestyle titles and in May she broke the world record of American Janet Evans which had stood for the best part of 18 years.

Germans Michael Gross and Franziska van Almsick and Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband have been the most prolific winners with six gold medals in a single edition of these championships.

Van den Hoogenband is in Budapest for his first major championships since he retained his Olympic 100 freestyle title at the 2004 Athens Games.

Sweden's Lars Frolander, who faded out of the spotlight after winning the Olympic 100 metres butterfly title in 2000, makes his 50-metre pool championship comeback after returning from retirement at last December's European short-course meeting in Trieste where he won the 50 metres butterfly.

The championships gather pace after five days of open water swimming in Lake Balaton, 100 kms from Budapest, and synchronised swimming.

The new Alfred Hajos Aquatics Complex on Margaret Island was completed in mid-June and inaugurated with a test event four weeks ago after work was interrupted for two weeks in March when the River Danube flooded.