Olympic champions Sarah Sjostrom and David Popovici made strong starts at the European Aquatics Championships in a morning session where Great Britain’s Angharad Evans set a women’s 100m breaststroke Championship record of 1:05.45 and France’s Nathan Muratory clocked a world junior record of 1:54.87 in the men’s 200m backstroke heats.

Sjostrom, 32, contesting her first international championship since winning two golds at the Paris 2024 Games – since when she has become a mother – made a satisfying start as she qualified fastest for tonight’s women’s 50m butterfly semi-finals in 25.40.

The prospect of her adding her current total of 28 European long course medals, which include 17 golds, look healthy.

A virtually packed Olympic Aquatic Centre then got a first glimpse of Popovici, who will seek a third consecutive European 100m/200m double in Paris.

Popovici was swiftest into tonight’s men’s 100m freestyle semi-finals in 47.13, followed by Croatia’s European indoor 50m freestyle champion Jere Hribar on 47.80.

Evans, who had a breakthrough success at last month’s Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games where she won the 100m and 200m breaststroke for Scotland, looks set for further podium visits here after eclipsing the mark of 1:05.53 set by Russia’s Yuliya Efimova at the 2018 European Championships in Glasgow.

She headed a stacked field into tonight’s semi-finals, followed by Ireland’s Paris 2024 bronze medallist Mona McSharry on 1:05.97 and Benedetto Pilato of Italy on 1:06.20.

Muratory, who won European junior men’s 200m backstroke gold in Munich last month, produced an extraordinary flourish in his first senior international championship as he and his French team-mate Mewen Tomac, who won world bronze in 2024, headed a list packed with world talent, with the latter recording 1:55.14.

Hungary’s world and Olympic champion Hubert Kos, who is entered for six events here, was third fastest in 1:55.37.

The downside for the hosts was that their world bronze medallist Yohann Ndoye-Brouard failed to progress due to the two athletes per nation rule.

A world-class field is contesting the men’s 800m freestyle here, and Germany’s 19-year-old Johannes Liebmann was fastest into tomorrow night’s final in 7:41.87, having spent much of the race inside the pace of his own European record of 7:37.94 before easing off.

Hungary’s Zalan Sarkany was second fastest in a national record of 7:42,34 and Ireland’s Olympic champion Daniel Wiffen clocked 7:44.86 in third position.

Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics