100th Gold, Bronze, and Silver Medals: Hungary at the European Aquatics Championships So Far – PHOTOS

The Hungarian men’s 4x200m relay team of Nándor Németh, Richárd Márton, Balázs Holló, and Kristóf Milák won the gold medal with a national record on Thursday’s opening day of the European Swimming Championships in Rome. The women’s team of Nikolett Pádár, Katinka Hosszú, Ajna Késely, and Lilla Ábrahám finished third. Dávid Verrasztó won the silver medal in the 400m medley at the European Swimming Championships.

The men’s relay team’s gold medal

The men’s team, which won gold at the 2017 World Junior Championships in Indianapolis, “got back together” for the World Championships in June at Duna Arena, finishing fifth with a national record of 7:06.27 minutes, and now they have cut almost a second off that time to finish in 7:05.38 minutes. This is the 100th gold medal in the history of Hungarian swimming at the continental championships.

In the men’s relay, Dániel Mészáros dropped out and was replaced by Kristóf Milák, so the 2017 World Junior Champion relay team was reassembled with him, Richárd Márton, Nándor Németh, and Balázs Holló.

The fight was only close until the final swimmer, Olympic champion Kristóf Milák, who practically left others in the dust, finished the relay with a great victory.

We have swum together several times in the past, but in the future, we will get even better together, it would be good to aim for a time of around seven minutes,”

said Richárd Márton.

Nándor Németh said that he would have liked to swim first, and he was aware that the team had a chance at a medal.

Once we got this team back together at the World Championships, we knew we had to push it. It is our first big result and I think we can keep topping it up, with an Olympics coming up soon where we can make a splash. We managed to start well at the beginning, and at the end, we threw a torpedo into the water,”

said Németh, referring to Milák.

The women’s relay team’s bronze medal

The women’s relay team of Nikolett Pádár, Katinka Hosszú, Ajna Késely, and Lilla Ábrahám finished third in 7:55.73. For the three-time Olympic champion Hosszú, the medal was her 97th medal in world competitions (Olympics, World Championships, European Championships).

First the women’s final was held, and the Hungarian team waited for the start with the line-up of Pádár, Hosszú, Késely, and Ábrahám. Dóra Molnár and Zsuzsanna Jakabos were eliminated from the fastest team in the morning preliminaries – the former had already announced earlier that she would not be in the evening program after the 200m backstroke semi-final – they were replaced by 16-year-old Pádár and three-time Olympic champion Hosszú.

It was great to swim in the relay again, the youngsters were sensational. It was a bit strange that my first event was a final, so now I’m a bit happy to have a rest day tomorrow,”

said Hosszú.

Verrasztó Dávid wins silver

Dávid Verrasztó won the silver medal in the 400m medley at the European Swimming Championships in Rome on Thursday. The 33-year-old Hungarian – who won the event three times in a row at the continental championships between 2014 and 2018 – finished with the best time of 4:12.58 behind Italy’s Alberto Razzetti (4:10.60). The other Hungarian finalist in the event, Hubert Kós, finished fourth in 4:13.77.

Verrasztó had the best time (4:15.52) in the final; after the start he was second in the butterfly behind Razzetti, and as expected he took the lead in the backstroke. At half distance, he was more than one and a half seconds faster than his time in the morning. The Italian took the lead in the breaststroke and started with a body length advantage, and from there he never let go.

I am very happy with this silver, it is a reality because in February I weighed 85 kilos. Since then we have also scraped together a pretty good morning time. I tried, but I went for the tutti this time when I saw the Italian go. This silver medal was an important step because it could have ended here, I am thirty-four years old, there are good young people behind me and I do not want to stand in their way, because I am Dávid Verrasztó, who once could do 4:09,”

said the second oldest male swimmer of the whole European Championships, who celebrates his birthday on August 22nd. The only one older than Verrasztó is one of the home nation’s favorites, Fabio Scozzoli, who turned 34 on August 3rd.

Verrasztó noted that it is possible to move forward from here, and while he does not claim to be an Olympic champion at 36, he could be capable of achieving a time that could be a decisive one at the World Championships next year, or afterward in Paris.

“The last month of preparation felt good, before that I was struggling, I wasn’t hearing things in my head that I wanted to hear, it was like that for six months, but in the end, it was always what I wanted and that makes sense,” the swimmer, who is training in Austria, noted.

Men’s 400 m mixed results:
1. Alberto Razzetti (Italy) 4:10.60 min
2. Dávid Verrasztó 4:12.58
3. Pier Andrea Matteazzi (Italy) 4:13.29
4. Hubert Kós 4:13.77

Source: MTI

Featured image: Kristóf Milák, a member of the winning Hungarian relay team after the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay final at the European Aquatics Championships in Rome, Italy, on August 11, 2022. Photo by Zsolt Czeglédi/MTI