2017 European Jr C’ships Day 3: Hungarians Reign In Netanya

2017 EUROPEAN JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Netanya, Israel
• June 28th – July 2nd
• Psych Sheets
• Meet central
• Live Stream
• Results

Halfway through this year’s European Junior Championships and we’ve already seen multiple meet records go down by the rising talent around the continent. The trend continued today across both men’s and women’s events, where these junior swimmers continue to impress and even throw down marks that could rival senior level of competition in certain cases.

Women’s Event

Ireland’s Mona McSharry already struck gold for her nation in the 50m sprint breaststroke earlier in the meet, but tonight she got her hand on the wall for a podium spot in the 200m distance. Although gold ultimately went to Great Britain’s Layla Black in a time of 2:27.31. McSharry led through 150m, only to lose the lead in the final stretch. McSharry notched a silver medal-garnering time of 2:27.44, enough to check-in with a new Irish senior national record. Bronze was awarded to Ukraine’s Denys Kesil, who finished in a time of 2:29.36.

Russia added another medal to its haul thus far in the form of a 50 backstroke win by Daria Vaskina. After tying the meet record of 28.18 in an earlier round, Vaskina wrapped up the win in a mark of 28.39, immediately followed by countrywoman Polina Egorova and her 28.50 outing. Bronze went to Italy’s Tania Quaglieri who also nabbed a sub-29 second time in 28.62.

On-fire Hungarian Anja Kesely continued her freestyle rampage, securing her 3rd gold medal of these championships. After bagging gold in both the 400m and 800m freestyle events, Kesely cranked out a time of 16:11.25 to take the 1500m freestyle race. In the process, her performance overtook the previous meet record of 16:20.80 held by Portugal’s Tamila Holub since last year’s edition of this meet.

The Russian women won gold in the 4x100m medley relay, notching a time  of 4:04.76.

Semi-Final Results:

• Russia’s Irina Krivonogova holds the pole position in the women’s 200m freestyle, clocking a time of 1:58.62 to lead out of semi’s. However, tonight’s 1500m freestyle victor, Anja Kesely of Hungary, is sitting as the 3rd seed in 1;59.99. She is the reigning European Junior Champion in this event with time of 1:57.96 from last year.
• Katerine Villesen of Denmark is the top seed for tomorrow night in the women’s 100m butterfly, earning a speedy 59.15 to represent one of 4 swimmers to dip beneath the minute threshold in tonight’s semi-final.

Men’s Events

The night’s fireworks came courtesy of 17-year-old Kristof Milak of Hungary, the young man who would rock a world-class 200m butterfly time of 1:53.79. Crushing the competition by about 5 seconds, Milak overtook the meet record, European Junior Record and World Junior Record with his dominating performance.  You can read more about the specifics of Milak’s incredible feat here.

Speed was also the name of the game in the men’s 100m freestyle competition, where another Hungarian got the job done. Nandor Nemeth, 17, took the gold in a winning time of 48.82. Splitting 23.38/25.44, Nemeth produced the only time under the 49 second barrier tonight. Silver went to Moldova’s Alexei Sancov in 49.01, while Poland’s Jakub Kraska rounded out the podium with his swim of 49.35.

Thomas Dean and James McFadzen made the men’s 200m IM a 1-2 punch for Great Britain tonight, securing gold and bronze in times of 2:01.02 and 2:02.67, respectively. In between the Brits was Marton Barta of Hungary who hit the wall in 2:01.82 for silver.

Although Italy’s newly-minted World Junior Recordholder Nicolo Martinenghi cracked a new meet record in the men’s 50m breaststroke this morning with is time of 27.23, he fell just .01 shy of that effort this evening to take gold in 27.24. Teammate Alessandro Pinzuti finished right behind in 27.51. Russia’s Evgenii Somov won bronze in 28.08.

The foursome of Kristof Milak, Nandor Nemeth, Richard Marton and Balazs Hollo blazed a new meet record in the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay tonight, stopping the clock in 7:15.46.

Semi-Final Results

• Russia’s Kliment Kolesnikov is holding the top seed for tomorrow’s 200m backstroke final in a time of 1:59.10. He is 1 of 3 swimmers under 2 minutes during tonight’s semi-final.