Milak’s 1:44.42 Anchor Drives Hungary’s 4×200 FR National Record (RELAY ANALYSIS)

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
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• Day 1 Finals Heat Sheets

To open up the 2022 European Championships, the Hungarian quartet of Nandor Nemeth, Richard Marton, Balazs Hollo, and Kristof Milak won the men’s 4×200 free relay title in a time of 7:05.38, marking the first time since 1954 that Hungary has won this event at Euros. They also broke the national record time of 7:06.27 by nearly a second, which was clocked by the same group of four at this year’s World Championships.

Hungary, 2022 World Championships vs. 2022 European Championships:

Swapping Marton and Nemeth in the first half of the relay seems to be the primary reason why Hungary was faster at Euros than Worlds, because Marton was over a second faster on a relay start compared to a flat start whereas Nemeth was only half a second slower on a flat start compared to a relay start. In addition, both Hollo and Milak were faster at Euros than they were at Worlds.

France had a substantial lead at the halfway mark and was winning by over a second with 200 meters left, but Milak’s 1:44.42 anchor coming from behind propelled Hungary to victory.

LEADOFFS:

Antonio Djakovic had a strong swim to give Switzerland the head start, setting a season-best time of 1:46.10 that was faster than the 1:46.61 he swam at the World Championships. Germany’s Lukas Märtens swam the second-fastest leadoff time at 1:46.22, which is rather impressive considering that he had been diagnosed with COVID-19 following Worlds.

Hungary’s Nandor Nemeth set a near-best time of 1:46.28, just off the 1:46.19 he clocked at last year’s Olympic games.

ROLLING SPLITS:

Milak’s 1:44.42 was way ahead of the pack, but both Italy’s Stefano Di Cola and France’s Wissam-Amaigh Yebba had great swims of their own, with these three swimmers being the only ones in the field under the 1:46 barrier. Yebba’s 1:45.92 rolling split was nearly two seconds faster than his flat start best time set in June 2022, which indicates that he could be in for a major time drop in the individual 200 free later this meet. Just from this year, Yebba has lowered his personal best from a 1:48.27 to 1:47.75.

Another swimmer who was diagnosed with COVID-19 after Worlds was Switzerland’s Noe Ponti, whose 1:46.42 relay split seems to indicate that he is in good shape. Matt Richards, Kieran Bird, Jacob Whittle, and Tom Dean of Great Britain were all off their bests and finished sixth, but this could be attributed to the fatigue of having World Championships, Commonwealth Games, and Europeans all in one summer.