A new national record marked the Bulgarian participation in the morning heats of the European Swimming Championships in Paris, France.
The native national Diana Petkova recorded an extremely strong performance in the 50-meter freestyle sprint, but despite her historic swim, she almost failed to continue to the semifinals.
Petkova stopped the clocks at 25.40 seconds, thus improving her own national record of 25.53 seconds, set eight years ago in Buenos Aires. The result gave the Bulgarian 27th place in the final heats. The fastest in the heats of the event was Dutchwoman Milu van Wijk, who set a time of 24.13 seconds. More details about the standings and the official times from the morning session can be read in the report of the Bulgarian National Radio (www.bnrnews.bg).
Our other leading competitor, Gabriela Georgieva, suspended her participation in the championship after the heats of the 100-meter backstroke. She finished with the 26th time in the heats, recording a time of 1:02.25 minutes, which turned out to be insufficient for a place among the 16 best on the Old Continent. In this discipline, the best result was given by Marit Steenbergen (Netherlands) with 59.66 seconds.
For Georgieva, this was her last start at the European Championships in Paris, and she remains the only Bulgarian competitor swimming in the evening session, having previously reached the semifinals of her crown distance of 200 meters backstroke. Video footage of the performance of the Bulgarian competitors is available in the aquatics section of the Bulgarian National Television.