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Day One - Mare Nostrum From Monaco

May 21, 2000  - Anita Lonsbrough

MONACO - Day one of the 18th Meeting of Monaco, the opening round of the Mare Nostrum 2000, belonged to Inge de Bruijn who established a world record for the 50m butterfly and quickly followed it with a European mark for the 100m distance.

In the eight final of the 50m butterfly the twenty seven year old Dutch swimmer sped to a 25.83sec to slice 0.0.46sec off the figures set last July by Sweden's Anna-Karin Kammerling.

The 50m events here in Monaco are run as a knock-out competition. After the heats the top sixteen prgress to the next round. The top eight to the quarter final. The next day the two semi-finals are held and the the top two meet in the final.

Within one hour De Bruijn the new world record holder, was back in the water for the 100m where she raced to a 57.96sec. This lowered the European figures set last month by Slovakia's Martina Moravcova.

Hungary's triple European champion, Agnes Kovacs, came within one tenth of the Eiuropean record for the 100m breast-stroke with a time of 1min 07.92sec . The record was set in 1987 by Silke Horner of Germany.

The Olympic and World champion, Alexander Popov, suffered a rare defeat over the 100m freestyle when Hungary's Attila Zubor raced to a 49.74sec 0.21 ahead of the Russian.