Hungary’s Milak cracks World Junior Record, Britain lands double
Hungary’s Kristof Milak’s thrashed the World Junior Record and hit the second place on the FINA World Rankings in the 200m fly on Day 3 at the European Junior Swimming Championships in Netanya. Hungary added three more golds, including Ajna Kesely’s 4th title in three days and the Brits also earned two.
The Hungarians retook the lead on the medal table adding four more gold medals to their treasury. The first one was a real shocker as title-holder Kristof Milak crashed the World Junior Record in the men’s 200m fly and he rocketed himself to the second place on the FINA world ranks, just 0.08sec behind Japanese Masato Sakai. An addition: Milak couldn’t make the senior World Championship team as world title-holder Laszlo Cseh and Olympic bronze medallist Tamas Kenderesi was faster than him in the selection period. Now he is ahead of them…
Team-mate Nandor Nemeth clinched the blue-ribband event’s gold as he touched in 0.19sec ahead of Russia’s Aleksei Sancov in the 100m free, producing the only sub-49sec effort in the field. The next title for Hungary was delivered by Ajna Kesely who earned a comfortable win in the women’s 1500m free, set a new CR. Just as last year, Kesely made the 400-800-1500 triple and she already has a relay gold in hand.
The Magyars ended the day with a fourth victory, courtesy of their men’s 4x200m free relay. The two individual champions, Milak and Nemeth doubled the number of their wins as the first two members of the quartet. They give a 1.26sec advantage to their team ahead of the Russians, from which 0.12sec remained by the end, still enough for a win and a new Championship Record.
The Russians stroke back in the women’s medley relay, they came first by a comfortable 3.14sec margin, ahead of the Hungarians. Here 15-year old Daria Vaksina could celebrate a day-double since she collected the 50m back title earlier in the session, edging out team-mate Polina Egorova by 0.11sec.
The Brits also had something to celebrate as Thomas Dean landed the men’s 200m IM title with a quite convincing swim and Layla Black was also victorious in the 200m breast. It was a pretty tight contest with the 50m champion Mona McSharry from Ireland – only 0.13sec separated the two at the wall.
Italy captured its first title as their new breaststroke prodigy Nicolo Martinenghi earned a fine win in the men’s dash.
Champions, Day 3
Men
100m free: Nandor Nemeth (HUN) 48.82
50m breast: Nicolo Martinenghi (ITA) 27.24
200m fly: Kristof Milak (HUN) 1:53.79 WJR/EJR/CR
200m IM: Thomas Dean (GBR) 2:01.02
4x200m free: Hungary 7:15.46 CR
(Kristof Milak, Nandor Nemeth, Richard Marton, Balazs Hollo)
Women
50m back: Daria Vaksina (RUS) 28.39
200m breast: Layla Black (GBR) 2:27.31
1500m free: Anna Kesely (HUN) 16:11.25 CR
4x100m medley: Russia 4:04.76
(Daria Vaksina, Alena Chekhovskikh, Polina Egorova, Vasilissa Buinaia)
Press release from LEN, photos courtesy of Deepbluemedia / Andrea Masini
