ISTANBUL, Turkey (AFP) — Records tumbled, but not as many as anticipated, in the final competition for the controversial high-tech swimsuits at the European short course swimming championships here yesterday.

The Russian men’s team twice broke the 4x50m medley world record, setting a new mark of 1min 31.80sec after having lowered it to 1:32.08 in the heats earlier in the day.

And Hungary’s Evelyn Verraszto beat her own world record, clocking 2min 04.64sec in the 200m medley to lower her old time of 2:06.01 set on November 6 in Moscow.

But there was no world record joy for Germany’s double world long course champion Paul Biedermann, who had been bidding to set a new record in the 400m freestyle.

The German, however, achieved the second best time of his career (3:34.55) ahead of Russia’s Nikita Lobintsev (3:35.75) and Dane Mads Glaesner (3:36.82).

Meanwhile France’s Frederick Bousquet, a three-time world long course medallist, claimed his first international title over his favourite distance, the 50m freestyle, but also without a record.

The French swimmer clocked 20.53 to finish ahead of Croat Duje Draganja (20.70) and Russian Sergey Fesikov (20.84) but missed out on breaking the world record over the distance which he holds in the long course (20.94).

Like Bousquet, most of the swimmers were wearing the polyurethane suits that will be banned by swimming’s world governing body FINA on January 1.

Credited with helping set 238 world records since February 2008, the era of the suit will come to a close in Istanbul, where they were first seen in 1999 during the same competition.