16-Yr-Old Daria Asaftei Takes 50 Breast Gold At Romanian Championships

2025 ROMANIAN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Wednesday, April 9th – Sunday, April 13th
• Otopeni, Romania
• LCM (50m)
• Meet Central
• SwimSwam Preview
• Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap
• Results
• Livestream

The 2025 Romanian National Championships continued from Otopeni with swimmers vying for potential spots on the nation’s World Championships roster for this summer.

While superstar David Popovici took the day off from racing, several teammates dove in with the hopes of adding their names to the lineup for Singapore.

Among them was Daria Asaftei, the 16-year-old who stole the show in the women’s 50m breast.

The teen fired off a time of 31.67 to win the event by a second.

Brigitta Vass was the silver medalist in 32.67 while Tamara Lospa collected bronze in 32.77.

Asaftei’s time checked in as a huge personal best, overwriting the 32.88 she put up at this same competition last year. Additionally, her performance represented a new Romanian national record, surpassing the 32.23 now-Hungarian Henrietta Fangli established nearly 2 years ago.

The men’s 50m breast saw Daniel Nicusan soar to the wall first, putting up a result of 27.92 as the sole sub-28-second swimmer of the pack.

Patrick Dinu was next to the wall in 28.04 and Emil Dancanet rounded out the podium in 28.45.

The men were chasing a World Aquatics ‘A’ standard of 27.33 needed to automatically qualify for this summer’s World Championships.

Additional winners included Eva Paraschiv, who notched 2:17.00 to win the women’s 200m fly by well over a second, while Vlan Stefan Mihalache took the men’s edition in 2:01.19.

Rebecca Diaconescu was the top women’s 400m free performer in 4:14.06 and Andrei Proca topped the men’s 4free podium in 3:53.88 this evening.