Hungarian Laszlo Cseh broke a second world record in as many days while France's Laure Manaudou sailed to an easy victory yesterday at the European short-course swimming championships.

Cseh took gold in the 400m individual medley, a day after winning the 200m medley, in a time of three minutes 59.33 secs to break his own world mark by more than a second.

Cseh, a world champion and Olympic bronze medallist, took the lead from the gun while Italy's Luca Marin, the defending champion, was never in contention.

"I wanted to put this away right at the start, I wanted to make it clear at the start what my plan was," Cseh said. "But I can still swim faster."

Manaudou, the Olympic 400m freestyle champion, took the gold in the 100m backstroke in a European record of 57.34 seconds.

Manaudou trailed Croatia's Sanja Jovanovic for most of the race but surged ahead in the last 25 metres to take a commanding victory.

"The other girls went out fast but I prefer to come from behind," Manaudou said.

Manaudou, who is seeking five golds at the European Championships, will compete in three finals today, including the 400m freestyle, one of her strongest events.

The Dutch women's 4x50m freestyle relay team broke the fourth world record of the championship when they smashed their own world mark by more than a second to take first place ahead of Germany.

In the women's 100m freestyle, Marleen Veldhuis, of the Netherlands, took the early lead but made a weak turn at 50 metres and Germany's Britta Steffen swam a strong final stretch to nip her at the line.

"This victory over Marleen Veldhuis gives me confidence," Steffen said.

"Today I had the little bit of luck I was missing (at the world championships) in Melbourne."

Russia's Yuliya Efimova won the women's 200m breaststroke in a European record of 2:19.08 and was virtually unchallenged for most of the race.