2022 EUROPEAN AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Thursday, August 11 – Wednesday, August 17, 2022 (pool swimming)
- Rome, Italy
- Parco Del Foro Italico
- LCM (50m)
- Start Times
- Prelims: 9:00 am local / 3:00 am ET
- Finals: 6:00 pm local / 12:00 pm ET
- Meet Central
- Event Schedule
- Entries
- Live Results
- Live Stream
- Day 7 Finals Heat Sheet
After swimming the 4th fastest time of the morning, David Popovici has scratched the 400 freestyle and won’t race in the final. Popovici swam a PB of 3:47.99 in prelims, which was his first high-level outing in the event. His former best time was a 3:58.10 from back in 2019.
Popovici will forgo the opportunity to clinch a 3rd individual medal at this meet, having won gold in the 100 freestyle and 200 freestyle in world record and world junior record time, respectively.
The other top 8 man who won’t swim in the 400 freestyle final is Italy’s Marco De Tullio who placed 7th in the heats. He will be bumped out of the final due to the 2 per-country rule as Lorenzo Galossi placed 5th (3:48.15) and Gabriele Detti placed 6th (3:48.38) in the morning session.
Without Popovici and De Tullio in the final, 9th place finisher Felix Auboeck of Austria and 11th place finisher Henrik Christiansen will be added to the finals lineup (10th place was Sven Schwarz, but there are already two German men in the final).
Men’s 400 Freestyle Final
- Henning Muehlleitner (GER) – 3:46.79
- Lukas Martens (GER) – 3:47.38
- Antonio Djakovic (SUI) – 3:47.67
- Lorenzo Galossi (ITA) – 3:48.15
- Gabriele Detti (ITA) – 3:48.32
- Joris Bouchat (FRA) – 3:49.00
- Felix Auboeck (AUT) – 3:49.16
- Henrik Christiansen (NOR) – 3:51.26
Both the gold medalist and bronze medalist from this event will be absent from the race in the final on day 7 as reigning champ Martin Malyutin‘s home nation of Russia is banned from competition and Danas Rapsys pulled out of the event prior to prelims.
Popovici is the only individual to scratch from a final on day 7 of the meet. The other finals that will take place on the last day of racing include the men’s 50 freestyle, women’s 50 breast, men’s 100 back, women’s 200 fly, men’s 200 IM, women’s 400 free, men’s 400 free, and the men’s and women’s 4×100 medley relays.
Some of you guys forget he is 17 and he raced this year as much as anyone.. First >> World Championship in Budapest: a.) through the qualifying process and the final for the 100m he never swam under 48, and broke his on WJR with 47.12; b.) in the 200m he was the first guy in 13 years to go under 1:44, breaking his own WJR there as well with a 1:43.21. 2 Golds. Second >> European Junior Championship in Romania: won the gold in 50-100-200m, he got a gold with the Romanian team in the 4x100m boys (another 47.54), silver with the mixed 4x100m (47.34). I saw all the races.. and in the reay ones he never got over… Read more »
Waaay too many words.
If I could have been as clear in fewer words.. I would have tried to. His volume this season is an unknown to quite a few. Most didn’t even expect him to race in the 400m and all of a sudden all this expectations.. as if he promised something and didn’t deliver. If he could have raced without any risks to his future plans/health he would have raced..
agree with both your points about Popovici and Dressel. People have been way too critical on Dressel. Most people don’t understand how much pressure he must be going through. The man cried after the 100fr final at the Olympics and I felt that. Now to perform under almost the same pressure after just a year… give the man some break. People just care about their own entertainment ffs
In that case, he shouldn’t have participated at the WC trials in April.
People weren’t anywhere near as critical of Dressel as they were of Titmus for choosing to skip worlds to prioritise another meet that was already in place years prior.
Come up with an objective measure for “levels of criticism” and let’s test it out.
My subjective memory is that both received quite similar levels of criticism.
Remember one, Titmus, choose skip worlds, admitted that pressure of defeating Ledecky (GOAT) was high & wanted a less pressured year with a less pressured meet.
The other Dressel, stopped during a meet, no explanation, no nothing, leaving him open to conjuncture big difference, worried about Popovici (possible future GOAT).
So I think one was more criticism for what she choose, the other was criticism of the unknown.
400 free is a very strategical event. He might have something big in him, but he needs to learn how to pace it. He won’t be anywhere close to the WR if he has only swum it 3 or 4 times in his life.
Every time I read these threads, I see lots of nauseating “the athletes don’t owe us anything” stuff.
I think I’m going to just start screenshotting them all and then post them every time I see y’all whining about “why aren’t there more people in attendance at the meet” or “why aren’t swimmers paid more” or “why didn’t ESPN air my favorite swimming highlight.”
If the athletes don’t care about making us care, then we should all stop caring about making them rich and famous. It’s a two-way street.
I can’t really tell if some of you just get off on racing to the moral high ground, or if you’re just too stupid to realize the connection between things like… Read more »
C’mon.”making them rich and famous” , except US, AUS and a few more swimming countries, swimmers are amateur athletes and not rich n famous. A final scratch athlete from Romania , where most people dont know where it is, wont make the difference in the interest about the sport, his achievements is the answer. Swimming fans are romantics and there is no ESPN nor swimming highlights on TV nor millions or reality shows for every exceptional swimmer from a small country. And if someone won’t swim an event, he absolutely doesnt have in mind what u said
People keep saying this. But it’s self fulfilling, and cumulative. “No swimmers are rich and famous” – yeah, because this sport has a long, proud history of not giving a s*** about the people who drive riches and fame for athletes: the fans.
Does one swimmer scratching a final at the European Championships mean the sport won’t make it? No. But this is the same excuse people use for:
-Titmus and McKeon skipping Worlds
-Dressel pulling out of Worlds and not telling us why
-Empty lanes at major championship meets
-4 hour prelims sessions
-ISL’s black box of information
I got bored even making the list, but I could put 20 more things on it from… Read more »
Swimming will never be NBA,football or euro football,not every sport wins all fans. Is it that hard ?
Competition schedules are messed up cuz of COVID, every year we have euros,worlds and delayed Olympics. Titmus and McKeown has every right to skip when necessary. Same applies to every swimmer,it’s not a league it’s a sport against yourself and not to win “follower fans” that dictate the fame or whatever cash flow you visualise in your mind. dressel is exhausted,everyone is.
What is euro football?
There is American football.
There is Australian football.
There is Gaelic football.
There may even be Canadian football.
But there is no euro football, if you mean Soccer, well that is football in every other country bar US, Canada & Australia, so you can’t call it euro football, because it’s Europe, Asia, South America & Africa all play football (soccer)
A list of football vs. soccer: https://www.topendsports.com/sport/soccer/sport-name.htm
A map of football vs. soccer: https://www.businessinsider.com/football-vs-soccer-map-2013-12
There is such thing as euro football. It’s football played in Europe, as differentiated from, say, CONCACAF or MLS or Chinese Super League or CONMEBOL. An important distinction given context, because “euro football” has the biggest salaries and highest profiles.
That is a competition, not a sport.
There is the EUROS (country v country) & Euros Champions league (team v team).
While no doubt that the big 5 leagues in Europe that attract the biggest salaries & highest profiles, there are other competitions around the world like you mentioned that are also fielding high salaries & have high profiles, eg Messi & Neymar play in the Conmebol
I the know the NFL is also known as a sport around the world to differentiate from football (soccer), but the NFL is a competition not a sport. The sport is American football (football to the US).
Amen. 100%. Same thing with all the attention and support we give Dressel which makes him millions, then he can’t even give us, the fans who make his career possible commercially/financially, an explanation as to why he up and left in the midst of the World Championships for nearly two months and counting, yet can upload a sponsored brand Instagram post in the meantime to make some more money. Disgusting – and swim fans are quite happy, if not eager, to be walked all over in the name of… well, who knows what. In no other major sport would these things be tolerated in the slightest (imagine a series of stars just choosing not to attend the Stanley Cup Finals… Read more »
Dressel is one of the EXTREMELY limited number of swimmers to make millions of dollars, and he has given us all more than enough entertainment to justify that. His sponsors wouldn’t pay him all that money if peoples’ buying behavior wasn’t swayed by his endorsements. I, personally, would love to hear a statement from him on what happened at worlds. It’s fine to call him out for not giving us what we want. It’s really not fine to act like we are entitled to getting what we want from him. If you want to force him to change his behavior, then change your own – stop watching his swims when they’re televised, unfollow him on social media, and stop buying… Read more »
I doubt that many people are interested in buying the tacky NOBULL clothing he wears all the time.
It would seem that you’re wrong. NOBULL was valued at over half a billion in its last round of funding and they just became the official sponsor and supplier of the nfl combine. Whether Caeleb is effective at representing their brand is a different story – but they wouldn’t have done the deal with him if they didn’t think it would help them sell more shoes/clothes. If he doesn’t end up being able to effectively influence people to buy their stuff I imagine they will drop him after his contract ends.
Well thanks for calling everyone here stupid, but I think you’re missing the point just as badly as all of the people you’re criticizing. I agree with some of your points – if you want to be a successful athlete as a career path, then you have to understand that you are, by definition, commercializing your success. And if you are going to commercialize your success you have to be willing and able to give the fans what they want. But before you go calling everyone here stupid let’s understand this: the reason swimming isn’t popular is because the sport, at a structural level, does not appeal to the general public. The choices these athletes make for themselves do have… Read more »
Amen
The silver lining of him scratching is that it confirms this is really just a training test. Had he accidentally discovered that he has a 3:42 or 3:43 (as exciting as that would be for us today), he might’ve more seriously considered the 400-200-100 route in Paris, which would surely have put a cap on what he could do in the shorter distance.
If he doesn’t swim the final here, no way he does it at WC next year or Paris.
That said his swims this week were absolutely insane, he probably has penciled in 46.4 (22.5/23.9) and 1:41.9 has his next goal times, and we have absolutely no reason to doubt he can head in those directions.
Stunning that Thorpe swam 100-200-400 in Athens and won bronze-gold-gold
Has it been done by any other male swimmer in Olympics?
He’s the only one to medal at all 3, but I think it made more sense for him because the 400/200 were his main events and came before the 100, which was his throwaway event. Had one of his main events been after the 100, he wouldn’t have done it.
Popovici probably could try the 400free had it been his last event
Don Schollander in 64 won 100 and 400. That was before the inflation of events, no 200 then.
And he was the WR holder in the 200 so a gold was probable.
I don’t think we will see him swim 400 free in Paris 2024.
Popovici is a racer, If he felt good enough to put a 3:42/3:43 in the water, I don’t think he would have quit. But he looked a bit tired and apparently even felt more so.
The schedule in Paris is not doing him any favors: 400-200-100 on the first five days without any breaks? That’s tough.
He can certainly be competitive, but is that enough for him? Martens and Winnington are both young and can swim 3:41, Galossi is looking amazing. While he is miles ahead in the 200 free and also the huge favorite in the 100, he would have to face way… Read more »
Yeah he should just focus on the 100 and the 200 as of right now even though he is the WR holder he isn’t a safe bet in the 100 Dressel and Chalmers are still less than 0.2 off and a lot of guys are 47 mid and improving. I do assume he will continue to improve but right now isn’t the best time to try and extend into different events. He’s got the 200 in the bag though
I respect his decision, but my Wednesday is significantly less exciting now
I hope he didn’t contract Galossititis. I heard that it’s pretty brutal.
Na, that’s the 4th worse disease.
I hope he’s okay
The team said he is, it’s just a calculated decision to prepare the next competition. I think he realized how exhausted he would be after an all in 400
I’m not sure it’s that. Less than 4 minutes of swimming wouldn’t affect you 2 weeks later. Maybe he just didn’t feel a great swim happening.