Frenchman Alain Bernard set a new world record on his way to winning the men’s 50 metres freestyle semifinal at the European Championships here on Sunday.

Bernard set a new world mark of 21.50 seconds to beat the previous best of 21.56 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. The 50M freestyle final will be held on Monday.

There were seven finals on Sunday. Italy won the men’s 4x200M freestyle relay in 7:09.94 ahead of Russia (7:11.70) and Austria (7:13.99), and Ukrainian Oleg Lisogor won the men’s 50M breaststroke in 27.43 seconds 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 28.05 seconds to beat the old mark of 28.13.