The fifth day of the 2014 European Championships featured the 800 freestyle final, 100 butterfly semi-final, 100 freestyle final, 200 backstroke semi-final, and the 50 breaststroke semi-final for the men. The women had 200 freestyle semi-final, 200 breaststroke final, 50 backstroke semi-final, and the 100 butterfly final. The final event of the day was the mixed 4×100 freestyle relay. For a full recap of the final session from day 5 of the European Championships, click here.
- Let’s start it off by calling attention to Adam Peaty‘s World Record in the 50 breaststroke with his time of 26.62. This 19 year-old phenom is turning heads around the world. He beat Cameron Van Der Burgh’s world record from the super suit era in 2009. Last year at the 2013 World Championships, Van Der Burgh was close to his World Record from ’09, but he ended up winning with a 26.77, just off his pace.
- Gregorio Paltrineiri broke the European Championships record in the men’s 800 freestyle with a time that was four seconds faster than the last two winners were in 2010 and 2012. Paltrineiri already had the second fastest time in the world this year at 8:43 from April, but it is great to see distance swimmers consistently at that speed throughout they year.
- Molly Renshaw had an incredible final 50 of her 200 breaststroke to pull from fifth at the 150 to second at the finish. She had the fastest final 50 by almost a full second with her split of 36.24 for a final time of 2:23.82.
- Florent Manadou broke the 48 second barrier for the first time in his career, bumping him up to third in the world this year.
- Dana Vollmer’s world record in the 100 butterfly was under attack today, with two swimmers right at a half second off of the world record time. Sarah Sjostrom has had the best season of her career, so it wasn’t as much of a surprise to see her that close to the record. Jeanette Ottesen may have surprised a few people with her time in the final, however. Ottessen has also had a great season (ranked 2nd in the world in the 100 fly and third in the world in the 50 fly before this meet), although she has been consistently out-shined this summer by Sjostorm. With two swimmers this close to the world record, they could push each other to a new world record time before the end of next summer.
- Italy established the European record in the mixed 4×100 freestyle relay with a 3:25.02. Three teams were under the European record target of 3:29.10. Russia finished second at 3:25.60 and France was third at 3:27.02.
I don’t know much about Florent Manadou’s training, but as far as I know he hasn’t been concentrating on 100m distance very long yet. And still he managed to break that barrier. I hope he stays healthy because with his huge stroke he has so much potential. He seems to finish his race in a very much the same way Adrian does, with stopping breathing and raging to the wall:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-98QwKqkFic
Just an observation,
when so many russian swimmers get busted in the past year, SUDDENLY so many russian swimmers (morozov, Izotov, Lobintsev, etc) are getting MUCH slower this year.
I am not accusing anyone of anything…. just an observation 😉
They’ve not had a great fortnight! Only one gold medal in the pool so far, while they won just three at the European Athletics Championships last week. Both as the Soviet Union and Russia they used to dominate both these events along with the East Germans. Enough said.
I follow a Russian politics very closely & in 2013 Kazan uni games were the big aim & world juniors. 2014 was Sochi only . Now they are concentrating on bigger things.
This year anything European is down the list of priorities . In 2018 Russia may be in the Asian championships . You read it here. They never were European anyhow.
Florent looks to me as if someone plonked him in a muscle fondue & like the chocolate ones tried to get as much as possible to stick.
Kudos to Great Britain! Thus far – a break out year!