2019 EUROPEAN JUNIOR SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, July 3rd – Sunday, July 7th
- Aquatics Palace, Kazan, Russia
- LCM
- Meet Site
- Entry List
- Day 1 Prelims Recap
- Live Result
- Live Stream
Spaniard Alba Vazquez became the first gold medalist of the 2019 European Junior Championships on Wednesday, winning the first final of the opening day in the women’s 400 IM.
The 17-year-old did so in Championship Record fashion, clocking a time of 4:40.64 to take down the 4:40.88 record from 2009 previously held by Ireland’s Grainne Murphy.
Sitting back in fifth at the 200m mark, Vazquez Ruiz would drop the fastest breaststroke split in the field by over three seconds (1:16.82) to take over the lead and then managed to hold off Hungarian Viktor Mihalyvari Farkas (4:41.32) en route to the victory.
Last year at this meet in Helsinki, Finland, Vazquez placed fourth in a time of 4:46.01, and in February she lowered her best time down to 4:45.79. She dropped that down to 4:44.47 in this morning’s prelims before chopping close to four seconds off tonight.
She moves up from ninth to sixth on the all-time Spanish national rankings and also slides into the top-25 in the world this season in 24th spot.