Michelle claims a second gold in 200m freestyle

Michelle Smith de Bruin made another large splash in the San Pablo pool yesterday by claiming the 200m freestyle gold medal. At the European Swimming Championships Ireland's triple Olympic gold medallist earned her second prize in two days, putting her well on her way to making sporting history.

No individual has ever won five gold medals in this event. She has three more races to swim, one today, another on Saturday and the final event on Sunday.

De Bruin decided to enter these championships only two weeks before they began, after she broke a European record in the Leisure world pool in Cork. Since then she has taken on the best in Europe and shown them that she has lost little since Atlanta last summer.

Yesterday's event was considered her hardest of the five, particularly for a swimmer renowned for her strength and fitness over the longer distances.

Having just sneaked into the evening's final by qualifying as the joint slowest in the heats, she achieved a personal best time of 1:59.93 to ward off the challenge of the former European champion, Kerstin Kielgass, as well as several other new faces on the European map.

"The races do take it out of you but I do want to do well in all of them," she said afterwards.

"I didn't come here thinking that I could win five gold medals. I don't think of the medals or the records I can break. It's just winning the races."

In temperatures reaching over 35 C, swimmers complaining of the water being too warm and the electronic scoreboard having exploded in the heat before the championships began, there is much more than other contestants to beat.

The governing body of swimming in Europe, LEN, yesterday gave her a slap on the wrist for leaving the stadium after her first gold medal win in the 400m individual medley without attending the mandatory press conference.

Before that her husband, Erik de Bruin, was in a scrape with LEN over accreditation.

So far it has been eventful. Two brushes with the authorities, two gold medals and four more days to go for a possible slice of history.