Christopher Rothbauer Crushes 19-Year-Old Austrian 200 Breast Record

BERLIN SWIM OPEN

• Friday, February 28th – Sunday, March 1st
• European Sports Park, Berlin, Germany
• Meet Site
• Start Lists
• Results
• Live Stream

Even though the Berlin Swim Open has a majority of home nation swimmers occupying the swimming lanes, the annual edition of the meet also boasts a sprinkling of Austrian and Finnish athletes among the foreign racers.

22-year-old Christopher Rothbauer is one Austrian swimmer who made his presence known early on, firing off a new national record of 2:09.88 in the 200m breast en route to gold on day 1 here at European Sports Park.

After establishing himself as the top-seeded swimmer of the morning in a time of 2:12.32, the World Championships swimmer fired off the swim of his life to become the first Austrian man to ever delve under the 2:10 mark in the event.

Rothbauer’s time blows away the previous Austrian national record of 2:11.09, a time that’s been on the books for over 19 years. Maxim Podoprigoda established that result in Fukuoka, Japan on his way to taking silver in that 200m breast final at the 2001 World Championships.

Splitting 1:03.14/1:06.74, Rothbauer’s time of 2:09.88 hacked almost 2 entire seconds off of his previous personal best, a mark represented by the 2:11.78 he produced at the Swim Cup in Eindhoven nearly 2 years ago.

With his monster lifetime best at this Olympic Games-qualifier, Rothbauer has dipped under the FINA ‘A’ qualifying time of 2:10.35 needed for Tokyo.

He now ranks 15th in the world this season.