At Italian nationals, Matteo Rivolta, 21 and racing for Team Insubrika/Creval, woke the Riccione crowd up with an Italian national record of 52.06 (24.32) in the heats of the 100m butterfly. 

His effort, 0.34sec inside his personal best from a year ago, took down the shiny suit standard that had stood at 52.14 to Davide Natullo since the eve of a ban on poly and other external aids to speed in December 2009. Rivolta's time also takes him to the helm of the 2013 world rankings, inside the 52.11 in which Zhou Jiawei took the Chinese title at Zhengzhou in the past week. The wave of sub-51 efforts is yet to come, Rivolta looking to be the first there at the battle in Riccione.

On the second morning at French nationals in Rennes, Olympic champion Florent Manaudou and Frédérick Bousquet set up round two of the family sprint stakes, Manon's Uncle on 22.37, Manon's dad on 22.49 in the 50 free heats to grant themselves centre stage for the final this evening. Marseilles teammates, Bousquet pipped Manaudou for the 50m butterfly crown yesterday, leading Laure Manaudou to tweet: "Reste le 50nl les amis ! On verra demain si Manon avait raison. Papa 1 - Tonton 0"

Day 1 headliner Camille Muffat followed up on a 4:04 victory in the 400m free with 54.07 effort in the heats of the 100m free this morning, Nice teammate Charlotte Bonnet the only other inside 55sec, on 54.84 going through to semis this evening.

The finals session will feature the latest showdown between 2011 joint world champions for France, Jérémy Stravius and Camille Lacourt, in the 100m backstroke. When Stravious is done with that battle, he will head into the 200m medley semis, a 2:03.45 granting him lane 4 in the first line-up, Hungarian David Verraszto, based at Nice, in lane 4 for the second semi on 2:01.86.

Meanwhile, in Riccione, Federica Pellegrini stuck to her season pledge: no freestyle, expect for relays. She scratched from the 100m free the day after a 54 split in the 4x100m free for her club.