Hannah Miley makes mark with Budapest gold

Hannah Miley claimed Great Britain's first gold medal of the European Championships in Budapest after she overhauled world champion Katinka Hosszu in the 400 metres individual medley.

The Scot, who was 21 yesterday, produced a superb second half to her race and turned first after a stunning breaststroke leg and maintained her lead on the freestyle to touch in a new championship record of four minutes 43.09 seconds, 3.34secs clear of Hosszu, whose fellow Hungarian Zsuzsanna Jakabos was third.

It was the first major long-course medal of Miley's career and follows her fourth place in the same event at the World Championships in Rome last summer.

Miley said: "That is really unexpected. It's just great. We've worked so hard, me and my dad (coach Patrick) and he has put so much planning into it. It's all finally come together. I wanted to make my statement to the world: I'm coming through."

Miley's triumph was followed by a silver medal for the women's 4x100m freestyle relay. Amy Smith had a good lead-off to hand over to world 100m free silver medallist Fran Halsall who guided GB into the lead. Jessica Sylvester handed over in second for the final leg to Jo Jackson, not renowned for her sprinting, but the three-times world championships medallist dug in in the final metres to touch in 3mins 38.57secs, behind winners Germany and ahead of Sweden in third.

The men were eighth in their equivalent while Scotland's Robbie Renwick was sixth in the 400m freestyle won by French teenager Yannick Agnel ahead of world record holder Paul Biedermann.

Lizzie Simmonds and Gemma Spofforth both made the 200m backstroke final but Liam Tancock, world 50m backstroke record holder, failed to progress to the 100m final, finishing ninth in 54.72.

Yannick Agnel of France won the 400m freestyle, beating world record-holder Paul Biedermann of Germany in the final. Agnel clocked 3mins, 46.17secs to beat Biedermann by 0.13secs. Gergo Kis of Hungary was third, 1.97secs back.

"I wanted a perfect race for my first final at this level," Agnel said. "The competition was tough throughout the race and I had only the inkling of an idea that I could win."