"To win a medal at a World Championship at home in these conditions, with this kind of organization, in front of this kind of crowd, is fantastic," said federal captain Attila Bíró.Continue reading
In the men’s 25km open water race, Péter Gálicz won the bronze medal at the World Aquatics Championships.
Péter Gálicz finished third very smoothly with a terrific chase, the 22-year-old swimmer is the World Championship bronze medalist with a 13.9 seconds gap, Nemzeti Sport reports.
In the first half of the race, another Hungarian swimmer, Ákos Kalmár, was in the lead for a long time, but as time went by, the pace of the race took him back. He managed to rally several times, which meant that he did not fall behind the field. It looked like he could fight for a medal, but in the last kilometer, he didn’t have enough energy left to keep going.
The 22-year-old junior Hungarian champion Gálicz, on the other hand, was stuck in the pack for a long time, but as the kilometers went by, he moved up. He reached Kalmár and then passed him.
Gálicz then put in a fantastic run, and although he was unable to catch Italian world champion Dario Verani and former world champion Axel Reymond, he managed to take the bronze medal in a thrillingly relaxed performance.
I was prepared to come and say in the interview how happy I am to be sixth or eighth…”,
said Gálicz, the newly crowned World Championship bronze medalist.
I am extremely grateful to everyone, starting with those who sat through these five hours in front of the TV… Thank you to my coaches, to my colleagues, without them this success would certainly not have happened. Thank you very much to my parents who supported me in everything and cheered me on at the venue. I hope my grandmother was watching too, I am sending her the message: We did it grandma, we did it!”
He continued: “And I would like to say a huge thank you to one more person, Dániel Székely, who unfortunately has stopped swimming. He was there for all my races, he always helped me. I swam in my current goggles just for him, so Danika, if you had not trained with me for three years, I would not f*cking be here!”
The race was won by Italian Dario Verani. Kalmár finished in eighth place, while the Hungarian Réka Rohács also finished eighth in the women’s race.
Sources: Nemzeti Sport, Index
Featured image via Zsolt Szigetváry/MTI