PARIS: Italy’s Sara Curtis broke her own 50m women’s backstroke world record on Thursday when she won gold in 26.56 seconds at the European Championships in Paris, a day after she had set the previous record.

Curtis, 19, had smashed five-time Olympic champion Kaylee McKeown’s 2023 record on Wednesday when she clocked 26.63 seconds in the semi-finals.

Mary-Ambre Moluh from France finished half a second after Curtis to take silver, while Britain’s Lauren Cox won bronze.

Curtis broke the world record twice within 24 hours. It was the third medal for her at the championships, who won bronze in 100m freestyle and silver in the 4x100m freestyle. The teenager has been inching towards the world record all year, having broken the Italian record and the European record.

Earlier, Kristof Milak set a new European record in the men’s 100m butterfly final.

Hungary’s Milak clocked 49.48sec to snatch gold ahead of Maxime Grousset of France.

Milak then anchored Hungary to gold in the 4x100m freestyle relay in a championship record of 3min 10.03sec. His 46.29sec leg catapulted Hungary to the top ahead of second-placed Russia and Croatia, third.

British Filip Nowacki pipped Netherlands’ Caspar Corbeau to the 200m breaststroke title by 0.08sec, taking gold in 2min 7.70sec, with Corbeau winning silver and Austrian Luka Mladenovic rounding off the podium.

Barbora Seemanova saw off Marrit Steenbergen to secure 200m free gold in a championship record 1min 54.38sec.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2026