2019 SWIM OPEN STOCKHOLM
- Friday, April 12th – Monday, April 15th
- Eriksdalsbadet, Stockholm, Sweden
- LCM
- SwimSwam Meet Preview
- Day 1 Prelims Recap/Day 1 Finals Recap
- Day 2 Prelims Recap/Day 2 Finals Recap
- Day 3 Prelims Recap/Day 3 Finals Recap
- Start Lists
- Results
The 2019 Swim Open Stockholm is wrapping up today, but not before 19-year-old Kregor Zirk of Energy Standard made a major dent on the Estonian national record book.
Zirk finished 6th in the men’s 400m freestyle final in Stockholm, but produced a new lifetime best mark of 3:51.54 in that final. His outing crushed an almost 40-year-old national record of 3:53.95, which was the bronze medal time clocked by Ivar Stukolkin at the U.S.-boycotted 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow.
Entering this past weekend, Zirk’s previous personal best sat at the 3:56.87 he produced at the 2018 edition of this same Swim Open Stockholm.
Zirk’s next Estonian national record victim was the 200m free, where the emerging athlete clocked a big-time personal best of 1:48.62 to take the 5th seed out of the prelims. He would go slower in the final to finish 8th in 1:49.28, but his sub-1:49 outing was enough to mark his first time ever in that new time range. The previous record stood at his 1:49.44 mark from January in Antwerp.
The men’s 200m fly also saw Zirk wreak havoc, as he collected the bronze medal here in Stockholm in a new Estonian national record of 1:59.45. He became the first Estonian ever under 2:00 in the race, blasting away his previous lifetime best of 2:01.14 that rendered him 26th at the 2018 European Championships. His 200m fly new mark also checks-in as a Baltic Record.