Kristof Milak Talks Coach Change, Racing & Politics Within Sport In Hungarian Interview

Earlier this week, 200 fly Olympic champion and world record holder Kristof Milak did an interview with Hungarian center-right news publication Mandiner, where he discussed topics ranging from his career and lifestyle to more controversial subjects like the ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes, transgender women competing in women’s sports, and kneeling before a national anthem.

Coaching Change And Training

Milak was asked about his coaching change in October 2021, when he left Attila Selmeci, his coach of 8 years at the time, to train under Balasz Virth. Regarding the move, Milak said that he made it because he wanted to be more actively involved in the decisions he made for his career.

“With my new coach, I have much more room to comment, to comment on the training plan and I feel more involved in the day-to-day work.” Milak said. “I feel I needed this change. I made the decision not out of ego, not out of defiance, not out of self-esteem,”

Milak also mentioned that he trained alone for a year, having nobody to motivate him but himself. He says that the experience didn’t go well, and that it’s “great” that he’s now training with the likes of Richard Marton, who took 200 fly silver behind Milak at the 2022 European Championships.

“It’s great that we are training together with Márton, because even with the best training plan and the best coach, you can’t really get into the water if you don’t have a competitor to rival you.” Milak said.

“Even with Selmecci, I wasn’t the quantitative swimmer who mindlessly racked up the kilometers from wall to wall, but now quality training work has come to the fore, exclusively with a professional eye.” he added.

The 200 Fly, 100 Free, And Relays

When asked about whether he was motivated by times, such as a sub-1:50 200 fly, Milak said yes and added that he was “a performance-oriented man, a perfectionist enough to be interested in the fastest, the biggest and the best things.”

“I’m going to have world records because I’m aware of what’s behind me and what I’m bringing in the bag.” Milak said. “I also have a healthy level of egoism, which is typical of elite athletes. And I know what I’m capable of.”

Last summer, at the 2022 World Championships, Milak neared the 1:50 barrier when he broke the 200 fly World record in a time of 1:50.34. It was his second time breaking the world record in the event, lowering his mark of 1:50.79 from 2019. Milak is also 1.12 seconds faster than Michael Phelps, the #2 performer of all-time who holds a personal best of 1:51.51.

Milak also addressed the competitiveness of the 100 free, an event that he just started racing seriously last year. He says the event is “often a bloodbath”, but he continues to swim it because it excites his imagination and makes him the “multi-functional swimmer” that he wants to become.

“It excites my imagination, but I still need to work a lot on my mind and my movement culture,” Milak said of the 100 free. He set his personal best of 47.47 in the event at the 2022 European Championships, finishing second to David Popovici, who broke the world record in the same race.

Milak was also asked about his country’s pursuits in the 4×200 free relay, but he said that for Hungary, individual events took priority because it was too risky to sacrifice individual medals for more “uncertain” relays.

Trans Athletes, Russia-Ukraine, And Politics Within Sport

Milak also shared his thoughts on the subject of transgender female athletes, as World Aquatics made the decision to restrict trans women from women’s swimming competitions during the 2022 World Championships in Budapest. He says that he doesn’t have much insight into the issue and wasn’t “particularly passionate” about it, but believes that trans women have “no place” in women’s swimming, regardless of whether they have underwent estrogen-based hormone therapy or not.

In addition, Milak says he believes that a separate category would be the “best solution”, similar to World Aqautics’ proposed solution of an “open” competition category that trans women would be allowed to participate in.

“Estrogen and testosterone levels cannot be artificially influenced to the point where it results in fair competition.” Milak said. “If gender reassignment is about self-expression, self-actualisation, equality and freedom, so be it, but why would anyone want to enter the competition of the opposite sex when there are already rules in place? In other words, such a shift should not be about the pursuit of results but about intrinsic values, and yet it is the former that emerges.”

“I would also consider it extremely dangerous if pre-pubescent young people were to be operated on so that they could compete in the competitions of the other sex.” he added.

Milak also said he was annoyed that “sport is being so intruded by politics,” referencing the act of kneeling during a national anthem as protest. He acknowledges that he doesn’t understand the perspective of an athlete who kneels because his home country of Hungary was “never a colonial nation,” but that taking part in political actions was “particularly not the job of the sportsperson, because it is alienating to sports culture.”

In addition, Milak mentioned the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Even though he condemns the acts of violence and the loss of innocent lives in the war, he says that “international athletes are putting athletes in a corner.”

“By banning Russian and Belarusian athletes from the sporting arena, fair play is being seriously violated,” Milak said. “Of course, it is a sensitive issue whether a Russian or a Ukrainian athlete can keep his or her temper out of a world competition, but we are sportsmen and women, and we are the ones who can set an example that in such situations, it is common sense that prevails over emotion.”

The perspective of allowing Russian athletes to continue to compete is similar to those of most elite swimmers that SwimSwam has interviewed.

In March 2022, Russian and Belarusian swimmers were banned from the 2022 World Championships by World Aquatics due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the Russian Swimming Federation responded by pulling their swimmers out of all World Aquatics-sanctioned competitions for the year.