Swimming European Short Course Championships:   When Irish swimmer Muiris Ó Riada recently complained about the difficulties for home-based international swimmers using the National Aquatic Centre at Abbotstown, he probably hadn't heard of Andrass Thomsen from the Faroe Islands, the smallest of Europe's 50 affiliated federations, with just 100 swimmers and one 25-metre pool.

Thomsen finished 67th in the men's 100m freestyle yesterday, almost six seconds behind Olympic silver medallist Pieter van den Hoogenband and more than three seconds slower than Ireland's Stephen Manley.

While the criticism from Ó Riada was well aimed, the general and clear opinion on entering this impressive building is that Dublin has delivered a genuine world-class facility, one that yesterday served up its second and third world records of the competition.

Thursday's world record, which the German men set in the 4 x 50 metres, was the first ever clocked in an Irish pool.

Those world marks aside, yesterday's competition also produced a European record, four championship records and three swims that ranked as the fastest times of the year. Not a bad haul from two hours of swimming.

A number of factors have come together to make the pool amenable to records. Its depth, the spring off the boards at the turn and the wash, which dissipates at the sides of the 10 lanes rather than rebounding back at the swimmers, combined to make yesterday's event eminently watchable. In all, nine finals were run and four semi-finals.

The first world mark came in the heats of the morning session when the powerful Dutch women's team revised the 4 x 50m mark to 1:38.13 seconds.

The same team emerged chipper at the end of the afternoon's racing to again readjust the mark, taking around half a second off it to beat Sweden into second place with a time of 1:37.52 seconds.

Individually the other world record fell to Milorad Cavic in the men's 100m butterfly. The 19-year-old from Serbia and Montenegro came into the final with the second-fastest qualification time to that of Germany's Thomas Rupprath, the former world, European and championship record-holder.

But it was the German sprinter who perished in the wake of the younger man, Cavic touching in 50.02 seconds to beat the previous record by eight-hundredths of a second.

Rupprath, though, had his own moments of glory, setting a championship record in the semi-finals of the 50m backstroke before winning gold in the final.

"I trained hard for the results I have had here so far. After my semi-final I hoped to swim one second faster than yesterday. I am preparing for the Olympics in the 100m fly and the 50m free (style)," said Cavic.

Bronze-medallist Andril Serdinov of Ukraine was disgusted with his third place.

"It's terrible," he said. "I swim 50.88 seconds and then there is a competitor I have never seen and (he) sets a world record."

Everyone at the championships is swimming with an eye on next year's Olympics in Athens and to that end the British team reportedly had their television sets disconnected in their hotel rooms in order to simulate the conditions of Athens, where there will obviously be television sets but presumably they will broadcast programmes in a language incomprehensible to most of the Anglophone athletes.

The British team also had their share of success. Robin Francis took silver in the 400m individual medley as Hungary's Laszlo Cseh, the European junior champion, swept to gold with a European record of 4:04.10.

Cseh was on world record time from the mid-race split but slowed over the breaststroke and freestyle legs, with Francis closing at the end.

In the men's 100m breaststroke James Gibson and took gold for Britain with a championship record of 58.03 seconds.

More records too for the women, Mirna Jukic setting a championship best in the 200m breaststroke, Holland's Malia Metella setting the fastest time of the year in the 100m freestyle and Germany's Antje Buschschulte doing the same in the 100m backstroke final.