​David Popovici won gold in the 200m freestyle on Monday at the European Swimming Championships in Rome, breaking his junior world record. Thus, our athlete repeated the performance from Budapest, when he managed to perform at the distance of 100-200 m freestyle.

David Popovichi, European champion at the distance of 200 m freestyle

At the age of 17, David had no competition in Rome and finished the race in 1:42.97 (world record among juniorsafter finishing in Budapest in 1:43.21).

The podium was completed by the Swiss Antonio Djakovic and the Austrian Felix Aubeck.

Thus David created a new one competition record. The precedent belonged to Russian Martin Malyutin: 1:44.79 (Budapest 2020).

Popovici is the third fastest swimmer in history at this distance, after German Paul Biedermann (1:42.00) and American legend Michael Phelps (1:42.96).

David Popovichi will compete in Rome at the distance of 400 m freestyle.

Video source: TVR.

CE Swimming – 200 m freestyle, final results

1. David Popovichi (Romania) – 1:42.97

2. Antonio Djakovic (Switzerland) – 1:45.60

3. Felix Aubeck (Austria) – 1:45.89

4. Marco De Tullio (Italy) – 1:46.37

5. Danas Rapsis (Lithuania) – 1:46.48

6. Stefano Di Cola (Italy) – 1:46.74

7. Lucas Mertens (Germany) – 1:46.80

8. Dimitrios Markos (Greece) – 1:48.05.

Davyd Popovichi, world record at the distance of 100 m freestyle

David Popovici won the gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle at the European Swimming Middleweight Championships in Rome. In this race, the Romanian also set a new world record (46.86).

Romania at the European Championship (August 11-21) is represented by a delegation of 11 athletes led by two-time world champion (100 and 200 m freestyle) David Popovich. Romanian athletes take part in competitions in swimming, diving and high jumping.​