On the fourth day of the European Short Course Championships, seven swimmers from smaller countries broke national records in shorter events (50/100m). These are swimmers that in most cases need such a record if they want to advance and don’t have the luxury of gamesmanship in prelims
Daniel Zaitsev, a young swimmer who made the European Games final in Baku this past summer, set a new Estonian record 50 fly. Zaitsev touched as the last semi-final qualifier in 23.60, breaking his own record of 23.72.
Theodora Drakou also broke her own record, but finished on the wrong side of qualifying as the first reserve. Drakou went 27.72, her previous record was 27.78
Ekaterina Avramova new Turkish record 50 back did her through, she finished the preliminary in 27.49 to hack a few hundredths off her own record of 27.51. Avramova is another swimmer like Viktoria Gunes who is representing Turkey after growing up in another eastern European country. Avramova is originally from Bulgaria.
Former SMU All-American Mindaugas Sadauskas set a new Lithuanian record 100 Free- and it made him the surprise top qualifier in that event. Sadauskas hammered a 47.18 to break an over twenty year old record by Raimundas Mazuolis that had stood at 47.54
Marius Radu broke a much younger 2012 record in the 100 freestyle to make the semi-final for Romania. His time of 48.08 bested Norbert Trandafir’s 48.26
The final 100 freestyle record came from Artyom Machekin of Belarus. The veteran sprinter made it into third with a 47.44, a pretty significant improvement over the old record of 47.90 by Stanislau Neviarouski.
Nasjta Govejsek wrapped up the session with a new Slovenian record in the 100 Fly. The 18 year old made a nice improvement over her own record, moving it from 58.84 to 58.54.