2019 LEN EUROPEAN SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, December 4th – Sunday, December 8th
- Tollcross International Swimming Centre, Glasgow, Scotland
- SCM
- Entry List
- Competition Schedule
- Results Documents
- Live Video – LEN TV
The Hungarian men’s team has broken their 3rd National Record of the 2019 European Championships, with the latest coming from Maksim Lobanovskii in the men’s 50 free final on Friday. Lobanovskii swam a 20.76 en route to a 3rd-place finish in the event, which undercuts the old record of 21.06 that he did at the Swiss Championships in mid-November.
Russia’s Vlad Morozov won the race in 20.40, and France’s Florent Manaudou finished 3rd in 20.66.
Lobanovskii’s best time coming into the season was a 21.18 that was done at the 2017 European Short Course Championships. After almost 2 years of not dropping that time at all, he’s had a breakthrough short course season. That short course breakthrough comes after a long course breakthrough this summer, where he broke another 2 year drought by swimming the 8 fastest times of his career, bested by a 21.79 at Hungarian Nationals in March.
The Hungarian credits his career resurgence to his new training with coach Gennadi Touretski, who famously coached Olympic gold medalists Alexander Popov and Michael Klim, among others.
Hungary had never-before won a medal in the men’s 50 free at a European Championship in long course or short course, nor at a World Championship nor Olympic championship. Hungary has had some very successful male sprinters in their history, including the first-ever Olympic champion in swimming Alfred Hajos, who won the 100 free at the 1896 Olympic Games, but most of those came before the 50 free became a serious event in the 1980s.