Peaty's world mark amended after timing glitch

Adam Peaty's world 100 metres breaststroke record, set at the European Championships on Saturday, has been amended after problems with the race-timing equipment came to light, officials said on Sunday.

The time, revised from 57.00 seconds to 57.10, is still faster than Peaty's previous record of 57.13 set at the 2016 Rio Olympics, sparing organisers the embarrassment of having to wipe the 23-year-old Briton's mark from the record books.

The European Swimming League (Len) has apologised to Peaty and other affected athletes, a senior Len official said later on Sunday.

A second world record set on Saturday, the 50m backstroke mark of Russian Kliment Kolesnikov, remains unchanged as it was not one of the nine races that were affected by the equipment problem.

Len said the starting mechanism had been "incorrectly configured" so that nine of Saturday's races at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre showed times that were 0.10sec too fast.

"During the afternoon competition session on Saturday, the LenTechnical Swimming Committee became aware of a potential problem in relation to the race timing equipment for the first nine races of that session," a statement from the European governing body said.

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"Upon thorough investigation it became apparent that the starting mechanism had been incorrectly configured prior to the start of the session which resulted in all reported times being 0.10sec faster due to a configuration delay of 0.10sec."

The affected races were the women's 800m freestyle final, 100m butterfly final and two 100m breaststroke semi-finals and the men's 100m breaststroke final, 200m butterfly semi-finals and 100m freestyle semi-finals.

"We will be submitting the record application for the world record to Fina," said Craig Hunter, vice-chairman of the technical swimming committee of Len. "Provided it meets all the viable criteria in the usual way it will be approved, absolutely." - REUTERS