BEN PROUD claimed a silver medal in a tremendous 50m butterfly race at the European Championships on Tuesday evening.

Proud is the current world champion but in Glasgow he came up against the new world record holder Andriy Govorov of the Ukraine.

Govorov took gold in a new championship record time of 22.48 seconds, with Proud touching in a season’s best time of 22.78 seconds.

Afterwards the Plymouth Leander swimmer said: “I’m very happy. I did my race as I wanted to and that was enough for silver.

“Going up against the world record holder is always fun. It’s not something you get to do too often. It was good to go head-to-head and it was a great race, but he (Govorov) produced a great swim in the final.

“I’m happy to be dipping under 23 (seconds). It’s a season’s best for me, but I want to keep chipping away at that time.”

Proud will now turn his attention to the 50m freestyle, where he won Commonwealth Games gold in April. He will go in the heats of that on Wednesday morning alongside his Leander team-mate Tom Fannon.

“At the moment freestyle is going a bit better,” said Proud. “But you never know going into a meet. I will dive in their tomorrow and see what’s there.”