17-Year-Old Hubert Kos Rips 1:58.31 200 IM In HUN C’ships Prelim

2020 HUNGARIAN SWIMMING C’SHIPS

• Tuesday, December 8th – Saturday, December 12th
• Ferenc Csik Swimming Pool, Kaposvár, Hungary
• Prelims – 5:00 pm local (11:00 am EST)/Finals – 9:30 am local (3:30 am EST)
• LCM (50m)
• Start Lists
• SwimSwam Preview
• Day 1 Prelims Recap/Day 1 Finals Recap
• Results
• Live Stream

Day 1 of these 2020 Hungarian Championships brought on the Tamas Kenderesi versus Kristof Milak 200m fly battle. It turns out that was just a taste of the talent coming out in full force, as we were treated to a break though swim by a promising young teenager during these day 2 prelims.

As a reminder, this meet is following the Tokyo 2020 timing in terms of prelims taking place in the evening hours while finals occur the following morning.

This year 17-year-old Hubert Kos (birth date 03/28/2003) already established himself as a strong 200m IM/400m IM competitor, with the teen posting lifetime bests of 4:15.77 and 1:59.06, respectively, at the 4 Nations meet this past July.

With a few more months of training under his belt, however, Kos entered entirely new territory in the short IM, getting into the 1:58-zone for the first time of his career.

Splitting 54.55/1:03.76, Kos scorched an evening heats time of 1:58.31 to stake his claim on the meet title. That stunner from the rising teen qualifies the young gun for the 2020 Olympic Games, easily clearing the 1:59.67 FINA ‘A’ cut. Although his aforementioned July time also was under the cut, that meet was not a FINA-sanctioned Olympic qualifier.

For perspective, Kos’ 1:58.31 time tonight effort would rank him #3 among the United States’ all-time 200m IM performers for men aged 17-18. Kos would rank ahead of Michael Andrew, Jake Foster, and Gunnar Bentz, with the kid just 17 years of age as of today

Behind Kos in tonight’s prelims was Daniel Sos who touched in 1:59.88. Veteran Olympian Laszlo Cseh is also in the mix at this point, holding the 5th seed in a very casual 2:06.98. Cseh made the 200m fly final from day 1’s prelims but wound up dropping out of the medal contest, so we’ll see what the 35-year-old does with this event.

The other scorcher in tonight’s prelims session came from national record holder Szebasztian Szabo. The 24-year-old Serbian-turned-Hungarian busted out a lane 4-grabbing time of 22.96 in his signature 50m fly event. That represented the only sub-23 second time of the field, as this morning’s 200m fly silver medalist Milak posted 23.89 for the 2nd seed.

Ivan Lendjer actually tied Milak in that runner-up slot in 23.89, while the 50m free gold medalist already here from this morning, Maxim Lobanovszkij tied Cseh as the 4th seed in 24.24. The 200m fly gold medalist from this morning, Kendersi, is out of the final, placing 11th in 24.78.

For Szabo, his national record stands at the 22.90 he produced in Gwangju, which rendered the man as the 5th place finisher at the 2019 World Championships. The fact he’s only .06 away with the final yet to go bodes well for some fireworks we may see tomorrow morning.