Balfour shows off her silver medal

Adlington came second behind France's Laure Manaudou in the 800m freestyle final, while fellow Briton Rebecca Cooke was third in Budapest.

Scotland's Balfour took the silver medal in the women's 100m breaststroke behind Ukraine's Ganna Khlystunova.

Mel Marshall took bronze in the 200m backstroke final while Elizabeth Simmonds was fifth.

David Carry missed out on a medal in the 200m freestyle when he came fourth behind Pieter van den Hoogenband.

It is Dutchman Van den Hoogenband's first major championships since he retained his Olympic 100m freestyle title in 2000.

The 28-year-old Dutchman has now won the European 200m freestyle four times in the last five championships.

Van den Hoogenband celebrates his winning return

Carry's fellow Scot Gregor Tait also came up short, finishing fourth in the 200m individual medley, with local hero Laszlo Cseh taking gold. Tamas Kerekjarto added to the Hungarian medal haul with bronze.

A delighted Adlington said: "I don't think it's sunk in yet. I won the European juniors two years ago but I didn't expect to medal here.

"I was lying sixth and just started moving through the field. Manadou was just out there and it left me to concentrate on my own race."

Cooke said: "It was just outside my personal best by a tenth of a second. I would have liked to of gone under 8.28 - it didn't happen but I'll take the medal."

Balfour said: "I'm really pleased with silver. It was close there at the end but she took the gold.

"I thought I had her - two more metres and maybe I would have made it to the top step."

The 22-year-old swam 53.30 seconds to overhaul the previous mark of 53.42 seconds set by Australian Libby Lenton earlier this year.

Laure Manaudou of France broke the 19-year-old European record for the women's 800m freestyle by winning the event in a time of eight minutes 19.29 seconds.

The previous mark was the last individual East German long-course record on the European books.