LEN President Barelli meets HUN State President Ader

LEN President Paolo Barelli met State President of Hungary Janos Ader in the Duna Arena, during the evening session on the penultimate day at the European Aquatics Championships in Budapest. President Barelli thanked the support of Hungary to stage LEN’s top event which proved to be an outstanding success.

“It’s always great to stage our top events in a country where leaders are huge supporters of sports” President Barelli said. “President Janos Ader, just like Prime Minister Viktor Orban is a great friend of aquatics, it was a pleasure to meet him once again and on behalf of the LEN Family I thanked him Hungary’s never-ceasing support of European Aquatics.”

Hungary is a record-holder in organising LEN’s top events, the European Aquatics Championships have returned here for the 6th time (1926, 1958, 2006, 2010, 2012, 2021) and the stand-alone European Water Polo Championships were also held here three times (2001, 2014, 2020) already, besides several other LEN meets.

“I told Mr Ader that LEN was really grateful for the enormous support these championships received from Hungary as the organisers created the largest bubble the sporting world has seen during this pandemic period with almost 4,000 participants inside” the LEN President added. “It was a huge opportunity for the best European aquatic athletes to compete again on the highest level, in a world-class racing environment and also in the utmost safety. With one more day to go, I think we can state that our event is an outstanding success and a firm proof that sport shall always prevail, even in the most extraordinary times.”

The European Championships have been broadcasted by 38 right-holders and the free live streaming offered by LEN and EBU has been followed by hundreds of thousands of swimming fans worldwide.

“This event demonstrated once more the power and quality of European Aquatics” Mr Barelli said. “Even in this demanding period, our athletes, coaches, officials and national federations showed that talent, work-ethic, dedication and commitment always bring the desired results. We’ve witnessed fantastic races, great individual and team efforts – it was European Aquatics at its best. LEN is tremendously grateful for everyone who’s made it possible to enjoy another memorable edition of the European Aquatics Championships.”

The championships are to conclude Sunday evening with a flag-handover ceremony – the LEN flag will be passed to the representative of the next organiser, Rome 2022.

Press release from LEN, photos courtesy of MTI/Tamas Kovacs