Welsh rower Ben Pritchard set a world record for the second time in three days as he became European champion on Saturday.

The Paralympic champion broke the record in the PR1 men’s single sculls on day one of the European Rowing Championships.

Pritchard posted a time of 08:47:88 to book his place in the final in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The 33-year-old Welshman then topped that two days later, winning in a time of 8:40.38 to claim his first European title.

He has now added the European title to his Olympic gold medal from the Paris 2024 Games.

That record-breaking time was enough to beat the previous world-record holder, Ukraine’s Roman Polianskyi, who was second in 8:51.93, while Italy’s Giacomo Perini was third (8:55.96).

Speaking exclusively to Sportin Wales, Pritchard spoke of his shock at recording those two world record times.

“Yesterday was a bit of a shock, what with it being so early in the season,” Pritchard said.

“These first races of the cycle, they’re always quite scary as everyone hasn’t raced against each other for months.

“I went out of the blocks really hard and then had a big gap from pretty much the fifth stroke. It was really hard to maintain my level but to get a world record time is an awesome feeling.”

Elsewhere, Cedol Dafydd from Bangor was part of the gold medal winning men’s quadruple sculls boat that romped home in a time of 05:35:02.

In his first big international race, Dafydd exclaimed: “When we came through under the bridge we knew we were picking up momentum, going quicker and quicker and across the line, it honestly was one of the best feelings I’ve ever had. It was awesome.

“I couldn’t be proud of all the four of us.”

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