‘Opposite to Hwang Sun-woo’ Popovich Filmed at ‘1 minute 43 seconds’

Best record of the season at the European Championships

David Popovic (20, Romania, photo) took the top spot at the European Championships with the fastest time this year in the men’s 200m freestyle swimming. Popovich will compete for a medal with Hwang Sun-woo (21), the star of Korean swimming, at the Paris Olympics, which is about a month away.

Popovic won the men’s 200m freestyle final at the 2024 European Championships held in Belgrade, Serbia on the 22nd, being the first to touch the pad with a time of 1 minute 43.13 seconds. He finished first comfortably, 2.52 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Danas Rapsis (Lithuania). It was a pace that was expected to break the world record up to the 100m section. Popovich finished the 100m in 50.08 seconds, which was 0.04 seconds faster than Paul Wiedermann (Germany)’s 50.12 when he set the world record (1 minute 42.00 seconds) at the World Championships in July 2009.

After winning, Popovich said, “I played like I was training. “There is no goal record, I just do what I can,” he said. “It gives me a lot of confidence to have achieved this record without tapering.” Tapering refers to the gradual reduction of training volume by swimmers, marathon runners, etc. to control their condition ahead of major competitions.

The 1 minute, 43.13 seconds that Popovich left at the top of the electronic display board on this day is the best record in the men’s 200m freestyle this season and ranks 5th all time. Lucas Martens’ record of 1:44.14 at the German national team selection held in April was this year’s best time, but Popovich beat him by more than a second. Popovich is the only athlete to record a time of 1 minute and 43 seconds in the men’s 200m freestyle this year. Sunwoo Hwang recorded a time of 1 minute 44.75 seconds when he won this event at the Doha World Championships in February. 스포츠토토