2024 HUNGARIAN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Tuesday, April 9th – Friday, April 12th
- Duna Arena, Budapest, Hungary
- Prelims at 9am local (3am ET), Finals at 5pm local (11am ET)
- SwimSwam Preview #1/Preview #2
- Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap
- Start Lists/Results
- Livestream (Prelims)
24-year-old world record holder Kristof Milak continued his competitive comeback on day 4 of the 2024 Hungarian National Championships.
Milak raced in two events on the morning, the men’s 200m free and 50m fly, staking his claim on each.
In the former, Milak clocked a time of 1:49.21 to sit just .07 off of top-seeded swimmer Alexander Trampitsch of Austria. Trampitsch landed lane 4 in 1:49.14 while Richard Marton will also be in the mix with a morning swim of 1:49.56.
Milak’s lifetime best in the 200m free rests at the 1:45.74 put on the books at the 2021 European Championships. He produced an outing of 1:46.68 at last year’s edition of this competition to fall just over half a second outside the World Aquatics Olympic Qualification Time of 1:46.26.
In this morning’s 50m fly heats, Milak took the top spot in a result of 23.54, the 4th-best time of his career. Milak’s PB remains at the 23.27 produced in April 2023.
Hunting Milak in the sprint is the world record holder in the SCM version, Szebasztian Szabo who notched 23.78.
As a refresher, Milak is making his return to racing after having spent the majority of 2023 out of the water. Milak returned to training in mid-January and has already clocked some head-turning results here.
- 50m free – 21.89 Olympic Qualification
- 100m free – 48.38
- 200m fly – 1:54.90 Olympic Qualification
Additional Notes
- Nikolett Padar posted a time of 1:58.71 as the sole women’s 200m freestyler under the 2:00 barrier this morning. The 18-year-old possesses a career-quickest time of 1:56.17 from the 2023 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup Budapest.
- Christopher Rothbauer of Austria notched a time of 2:14.97 to lead the men’s 200m breaststroke field by over 5 seconds.
- The women’s 50m fly saw Lora Fanni Komoroczy take the top seed in 26.98. Italy’s Elena Di Liddo was next in 27.22.
- Zalan Sarkany clocked 4:21.23 in his bid for Olympic qualification in the men’s 400m IM. That already established a new personal best, overwriting the 4:21.61 from finishing 5th in the event at the 2021 European Championships. The 200m IM victor here, Gabor Zombori, was right behind in 4:21.27 while veteran David Verraszto claimed the 3rd seed in 4:21.60.
- Viktoria Mihalyvari-Farkas logged a morning swim of 4:41.44 in the women’s 400m IM. Former world record holder in the event Katinka Hosszu earned the 3rd seed in 4:49.80 behind 2nd-seeded Vivien Jackl‘s time of 4:44.85.
15 year old Vivien Jackl swims 4:34.96 in the women’s 400IM. Wow!
What was Ye Shiwen’s PB pre-London?
Milak wins the 200 free in 1:48.15. Quite slow, but he was basically sleeping through the first 3 50s, and split 26.15 on the last.
Obviously the guy has an unreal amount of talent but when the Hungarian officials say Milak’s “not training properly/not doing the work/been seen smoking/whatever” what they clearly mean is “Milak’s not doing exactly what we want him to do so we’re going to spout some BS about him in the media”.
More fool them now, he’s clearly been doing work somewhere and is making them look like the chumps they are.
How can you blame them when he hasn’t returned their call for 8 months and nobody new where he was. His mother – per the grapevine – , hadn’t seen him or known where he was for months. He was still being paid a hefty sum for training with his team which he wasn’t. What were they supposed to think and say? “No comment”?
Her name is Lora, not “Fanni Komoroczy”.