Steenbergen bags 5^th medal, two more for Milak, Fiedina stands with 5 golds 

Five titles went to five different countries on another thrilling day at the European Aquatics  Championships in the Foro Italico. Hungary’s Kristof Milak bagged a gold and a silver in an hour to stand with four medals after four days, while Marrit Steenbergen of the Netherlands added a  fifth to her already magnificent tally, completing the 100-200m free double. Still, the best collection so far belongs to Ukraine’s Martina Fiedina – she has amassed five titles, landing two more this afternoon. Italy’s Giorgio Minisini won the men’s solo event to earn his third win in  Rome. 

Swimming 

Hungary’s Kristof Milak faced the most grueling day of his Rome run – and ended up with gold as he retained his 100m fly title, and later he anchored the Hungarian 4x100m free relay to a silver medal with a 47.24 blast. Though he lagged a bit behind in the first 50m in the fly final but came up with another monstrous second leg to win with ease, ahead of Switzerland’s Noel Ponti and Poland’s Jakub  Majerski – the latter two clinched their country’s first medals here respectively. In 10 minutes, Milak,  the top qualifier from the morning, returned to set up another duel with David Popovici in the 200m  free, but he ran out of gas for the last 50m and ended up in the 10th place – so their second clash is postponed. By the way, Popovici looked smooth one day after his out-of-Earth world record in the  100m free, and advanced to the final with the only sub-1:45min effort. 

James Wilby landed another title for the Brits, the first individual triumph here, as he outsmarted Matti  Matson in the 200m breast and won by almost half a second. Though the Finn was still happy to become his country’s third swimmer ever to claim medals at the three majors (Olympics, Worlds,  Europeans). Veteran Luca Pizzini, aged 33, delivered a bronze to the Italians. 

As for the ladies, Marrit Steenbergen enjoyed another golden outing – not a single day has passed so far where the speedy Dutch left the pool empty-handed. She had two golds and a bronze with the relays and after winning the 100m free, today she came first in the 200m. Britain’s Freya Anderson staged a great finish, but she was 0.16sec shy of her rival at the wall, adding silver to her 100m free bronze (and she also has two relay medals). Germany’s Isabel Gose, the runner-up in the 800m free, finished third. 

France’s second gold medal also came in the backstroke: following the men’s 200m a day earlier,  Analia Pigree claimed gold in the 50m at her first long-course European in her first big final – not bad for a start. Italy’s Silvia Scalia out-touched Maikee de Waard by the tiniest possible margin, 0.01sec – so the Dutch had another dash bronze as she was also third in the 50m fly. 

Exceptionally, the home crowd had to wait till the last final to celebrate another Italian win. At least,  that was never in danger as all four men of the hosts’ 4x100m free relay posted blistering 47sec legs,

which none of their rivals were capable of. Consequently, they won by a mile, by 1.93sec,  ahead of the Hungarians and the Brits. 

Artistic swimming 

Three more finals produced the expected outcome on the penultimate day at the artistic swimming competition. The first-ever male solo free event saw the same two getting the highest scores as in the technical final: Italy’s Giorgio Minisini doubled down the titles, Spain’s Fernando Diaz got the silver  and France’s Quentin Rakotomalala earned the bronze. On a side note, Minisini dropped in his post-race comment that the judges were yet to adjust their assessment of the male-only competitions as they viewed and compared the routines to the women’s top performers who had been in the business since long years.  

Like Marta Fiedina, who offered another breath-taking performance to win the solo free title, ahead of  Italy’s Linda Cerruti and Austria’s Vasiliki Alexandri – to copy the final ranks in the technical final. And Ukraine went 6/6 in the female events soon, Fiedina&Co. finished atop in the free combination,  Italy earned the silver here as well (this was their 5^th among the women), and finally, the Greeks could step onto the podium as well.

Press release courtesy of LEN, photos courtesy of LEN/S. Castrovillari

Popovici: in a world of his own 

It’s official: David Popovici is the fastest swimmer on Earth – the Romanian set a new world record in the 100m free in Rome, bringing down Cesar Cielo’s 13-year-old mark to clock 46.86.  Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom got two medals, a gold, and a silver, to catch up with Katinka Hosszu on the all-time medal charts (they stand with 25 apiece). Italy enjoyed more success and Great  Britain landed its first title in Rome. 

Finally, it happened – and it had to happen here, in the Foro Italico, where Brazil’s Cesar Cielo set that monstrous 46.91 world record in 2009 when the full-body super suits propelled the top swimmers to better 43 global marks at the World Championships. 

Though many thought that those records should remain untouchable for long years, if not decades, the most talented athletes of the following generations started bringing them down, one after the other. Still,  the men’s freestyle WRs really seemed to be out of reach – up until now. When David Popovici surfaced last year here in Rome at the junior Europeans and set a series of incredible junior WRs, the expert eye saw immediately that he could be the chosen one. 

Today he proved that: after clocking 47.13 at the World Championships, then breaking the 47sec barrier here in the semis, bringing down Cielo’s mark should come next. The only minor concern was that the  Romanian Rocket slowed down a bit in Budapest for the final, he was almost 0.4sec slower than in the semis (just as the field, still won the title). But here everything unfolded as expected – and he got a  boost from the next lane where Kristof Milak checked in for a test to try speeding in the freestyle after rewriting the history books in butterfly. 

Though Popovici turned second at the halfway mark, his homecoming leg was truly amazing and when he touched the wall, the Stadio del Nuoto erupted, the crowd created such if not bigger noise when the  Italians were doing something great. Popovici shaved off 0.05sec from the previous mark to become the fastest swimmer in the world. Milak came second with 47.47 – and applauded his rival at the wall –,  while Italy’s Alessandro Miressi finished third. (As a matter of interest: this year marks the 100th anniversary of Johnny Weissmuller’s first-ever sub-1min swim in this event – this was the Popovici  Way to honor that milestone.) The other finals also offered thrilling races. Sarah Sjostrom managed to get even with Katinka Hosszu in the all-time medal chart as she bagged two medals this evening. First, she retook the 50m fly title with another fine sub-25sec effort to win the event for the 5th time since 2012 (her injury last year prevented her from making six straight victories). Then she came second with the Swedish free relay to claim her 25th podium in the history of the championships. Hosszu was supposed to add a 26th to her tally but she bowed out in the 400m IM heats in the morning – despite finishing 4^th, two of her compatriots posted better times and one nation could have only two qualifiers. (The five-time champion missed the 400m IM final for the first time since 2006, apart from 2018 when she did  not enter.) 

Though the other two, Viktoria Mihalyvari-Farkas and Zsuzsanna Jakabos did a splendid job. The younger left no doubt that she was ready to take over the reign – she was runner-up last year –, while  Jakabos, competing in her record-setting 10th Europeans, staged a great finish to clinch the silver and return to the podium after 2016.  

Italy also staged a 1-2 finish, in the 100m breast, where world champion Benedetta Pilato added the  European crown and Lisa Angiolini a bit surprisingly out-touched Ruta Meilutyte of Lithuania by  0.16sec. The atmosphere was also electrifying when Gregorio Paltrinieri smashed the Championship  Record while winning the 800m free and compatriot Lorenzo Galossi claimed the bronze – the junior  European champion also set a new junior WR; Germany’s Lucas Maertens finished runner-up. 

France enjoyed a fine start of the session as Yohann Ndoye Brouard won the 200m back convincingly right away, ahead of surprise silver medallist Benedek Kovacs of Hungary and Britain’s Luke  Greenbank. Soon came Marie Wattel’s silver in the 50m fly (behind Sjostrom), while the Netherlands’  Maike de Waard got the bronze. 

The Dutch medalled in another relay too – after winning the women’s 4x200m free and the mixed  4x100m medley, now came third in the women’s 4x100m free. Here Great Britain finally snatched gold  – after collecting six medals already –, their two 53.4 splits secured a convincing title defense.

Artistic Swimming 

No shake-up on the duet free day – Gregorio Minisini and Lucrezia Ruggiero gave their best to win the mixed title, Spain’s experienced pair of Pau Ribes and Emma Garcia got the silver. And to create more history, the young Solymosi-siblings, Jozef and Silvia delivered the first-ever medal to Slovakia. 

Siblings, rather twins, ruled the classical duet event as well. Ukraine’s Aleksiivas, Maryna, and  Vladyslava clinched the country’s fourth gold here, while the Alexandri triplets of Austria had an even better day than on Friday. Then Vasiliki claimed the long-awaited medal in solo, today Eirini and Anna  Maria bettered even the Italian duet of Linda Cerruti and Constanza Ferro for the silver.

Press release courtesy of LEN, photos courtesy of LEN/S. Castrovillari

Gold feast for Italy, Dutch double, and ER blast for Popovici 

Italy bettered the Netherlands 4-2 in the title race on Day 2, but the second day’s biggest blast came in the men’s 100m free semis. Romanian Rocket David Popovici bettered the European record (and his junior WR) with a 46.98 blast, becoming the first European to go sub-47sec in textile. The women’s 100m title went to Dutchwoman Marrit Steenbergen who claimed three golds in two days already. Italy grabbed a 5^th title earlier when Giorgio Minisini won the historical first male solo event in artistic swimming. Among the women, Ukraine ruled the day once more, Marta Fiedina landed her third gold as well, came first in the solo technical, then in the highlights routine with her teammates. 

Swimming 

A year ago, David Popovici stole the show here in the pool as he rewrote the junior world record list in the freestyle events at the junior Europeans while making the 50-100-200 triple. This June, the 17-year-old established himself as the brightest star of Europe’s next-gen swimmers by doubling down the 100- 200m free titles at the FINA World Championships (the first one to achieve that after 1973), then entertained the home crowd in Otopeni at the junior Europeans three weeks ago (grabbed four titles)  before returning to Rome.  

And once he graced the scene, he launched a rocket in the morning heats, setting a new Championship  Record (47.20, 0.07sec shy of his junior WR set in Budapest), then came the semis and he was really in the mood, stopping the clock at 46.98. This is a new European record (Kliment Kolesnikov held the previous one with 47.11), a new junior WR – and he is the first-ever European under 47sec in textile suits. He sits 4th on the all-time ranks, Cesar Cielo’s WR – set in this very same pool 13 years ago – stands at 46.91, Frenchman Alain Bernard had a 46.94 (both from the shiny era, though the latter was never ratified as ER), and at the 2019 Worlds USA’s superman Caeleb Dressel swam 46.96 (that is the current textile-best). 

The finals saw a brilliant run of the home swimmers. Italy’s best female deliverers from the past  Europeans were Margherita Panziera in the 200m back (winning also in 2018 and 2021) and Simona  Quadarella in the longer free distances (completing trebles in Glasgow and Budapest). And they didn’t disappoint the home fans this time either – Panziera opened Italy’s march, seeing off Britain’s Katie  Shanahan who just went on collecting medals in the Foro Italico after starring in Rome last year,  grabbing six medals at the juniors. Hungary’s Dora Molnar – who was the top performer in this year’s juniors in Otopeni with 6 medals as well – claimed her first-ever podium at the elite level. 

Quadarella expanded her golden streak at Europeans to 7/7, Isabel Gose of Germany challenged her in the 800m free, but the title-holder held on firmly. Another young hero from last year’s Rome juniors,  Merve Tuncel of Turkey – having excelled over the same distances as Quadarella both in 2021 and  2022 – bagged her first senior European medal too.

Italian men also brought the expected wins. One of the hosts’ most versatile swimmers Thomas Ceccon won the 50m fly, just weeks after his world record-beating swim in the 100m back – ahead of France’s  Maxime Grousset and Portugal’s Diogo Ribeiro. 

After title-holder Adam Peaty had skipped the Worlds due to his foot injury, his European throne was also vacated – and just like in Budapest, Nicolo Martinenghi took over the reign in the 100m breast. A  bit unexpectedly, the crowd could cheer for a 1-2 finish as Federico Poggio stunned many by finishing  

runner-up. Only the battle for the bronze was fierce, five finalists hit the wall within 0.18sec.  Lithuania’s Andrius Sidlauskas out-touched the others, including GB’s James Wilby, who had beaten  Peaty at the Commonwealth Games, and Dutchman Arno Kamminga who had to settle for the 7th place,  despite being considered the biggest threat to Peaty’s magical run a year ago as the second man ever clocking a time starting with 57sec (now he swam 59.68). 

Still, the Dutch – including Kamminga – had a couple of golden moments in the evening. Marrit  Steenbergen was no match for the others in the 100m free, beat France’s Charlotte Bonnet and GB’s  Freya Anderson with ease, then she returned to anchor the Netherlands’ mixed medley relay to another convincing victory. Thus, Steenbergen clinched three golds in two days here (came first with the  4x200m free relay as well), and Kamminga also had some consolation. Though Italy’s relay featured two freshly crowned champions, Martinenghi and Ceccon, in the second half of the race their advantage gradually decreased and Steenbergen outpaced Silvia di Pietro over the free leg. Indeed, while the  Dutch clocked 53.24 in the individual final and geared up for a 52.33 split in the relay, di Pietro couldn’t hit a higher speed at all (54.18, then 54.17). Thanks to that, the Dutch won by 1.88sec – while the Brits, without Peaty’s usual input, finished third after three straight triumphs. 

Artistic Swimming 

Another milestone was passed in the afternoon when the first-ever male solo event kicked off at the  European Championships. The historical title went to Giorgio Minisini, as expected – the Italian,  multiple medal-winner at World and European Champs in mixed duet – performed his routine under the title ‘The Plastic Sea’, a special effort to call people’s attention to the devastating pollution of the world’s oceans. Spain’s Fernando Diaz got the silver while Serbia’s Ivan Martinovic finished third – both competed at this level for the first time. The medal ceremony was filled with emotions, Minisini dropped some tears while he was announced as the first-ever male solo European champion. 

The other two finals didn’t offer any upset either. Ukraine grabbed two more titles, Marta Fiedina won the solo technical, then half an hour later was also part of the highlight routine, where their usual high throws and brilliant dives were really highlights of the session. Italy and France got the minor spoils. 

Linda Cerruti brought another silver for Italy, while Vasiliki Alexandri of Austria managed to earn more points than Greece’s Evangelia Platanioti. At the World Champs, they finished in reverse order, now the bronze meant the world for the soloist of the Alexandri triplets. Bouncing back from a serious illness she had contracted here in Rome, the Austrian was all in tears after learning that she finally claimed a  medal at a major event.

Press release courtesy of LEN, photos courtesy of LEN/S. Castrovillari