EINDHOVEN, Netherlands (AFP) - Frenchman Alain Bernard set a new world record on his way to winning the men's 50 metres freestyle semi-final at the European Championships here on Sunday.
Bernard set a new world mark of 21.50sec to beat the previous best of 21.56sec set by Australian Eamon Sullivan in Sydney last month.
It was the third world record set by the 24-year-old Frenchman here after twice bettering the 100m freestyle best, on Friday and Saturday.
Bernard first beat Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband's 100m record of 47.84sec with a time of 47.60 in the semi-final Friday before lowering the record to 47.50 when he won the final on Saturday.
The 50m freestyle final will be held on Monday.
Nothing seems to be stopping Bernard who admitted afterwards with understatement that he felt in good form.
"I'm feeling well and I'm taking a lot of pleasure from my swimming and perhaps that's my secret, enjoying myself," Bernard said afterwards. "That's an advantage and as everything is going well I'm making the most of it and am not thinking about things too much."
A major plus for Bernard had been his impressive start which he admitted had been a weakness of his till now.
"This (starts) was one of the things that I had been practising very hard on in training with the help of coaches from the French swimming federation," he said.
"We really thought hard about what I needed to do and made a decision on it. We will probably stick with it because it has been working."
His coach Denis Auguin was delighted with Bernard. "He told me beforehand he was going to go fast and in his language I knew what that meant," Auguin said. "Moments like this are exceptional and you need to make the most of them."
There were seven finals on Sunday.
Italy won the men's 4x200m freestyle relay in 7min 9.94sec ahead of Russia (7:11.70) and Austria (7:13.99), and Ukrainian Oleg Lisogor won the men's 50m breaststroke in 27.43sec ahead of Norway's Alexander Dale Oen (27.53) and Italy's Alessandro Terrin (27.64).
Russia's Anastasia Zueva set a new European record in winning the 50m backstroke in 28.05sec to beat the old mark of 28.13 of Spain's Nina Zhivanevskaya set on Saturday in Eindhoven.
Austria's Markus Rogan meanwhile won the men's 200m backstroke in 1:55.85 to beat out Russia's Arkady Vyatchanin (1:57.04) and Romania's Razvan Florea and Slovenia's Daria Isakovic won the women's 200m freestyle in 1:57.45 to beat out Romania's Camelia Potec (1:57.47) and Agnes Mutina of Hungary (1:58.06).
A further Russian victory came from Evgeny Korotyshkin in the 100m butterfly after he set a time of 51.89sec to beat out Slovenia's Peter Mankoc (52.07) and Spain's Rafael Munoz Perez (52.09).
Switzerland's Flavia Rigamonti won the women's 1,500m in 15:58.54 to finish ahead of Spain's Erika Villaecija (16:02.08) and Denmark's Lotte Friis (16:11.26).
