2020 BULGARIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
- August 7th – August 9th
- Varna, Bulgaria
- LCM (50m)
- Results
The 2020 Bulgarian Championships wrapped up over the weekend, but not before 17-year-old Josif Miladinov made his mark in the men’s butterfly. Competing in the 100m fly sprint, Miladinov lowered his own national record, producing a stellar 51.55 to take the gold.
Essentially racing himself, the teen beat the domestic field by over 6 seconds en route to overwriting his previous NR of 51.91. That sub-52 second mark was logged in the prelims of the 2019 World Junior Championships. Miladinov wound up finishing 4th in that Budapest final with another sub-52 second outing of 51.96.
Although splits are not yet available for the Bulgarian’s 51.55 performance, we know that it ranks Miladinov among the top 25 performers in the world this season at just 17. Within Europe’s 18&U set, Miladinov now takes over the #1 spot from Russia’s Andrei Minakov who had posted a time of 51.73 from the FINA World Champions Series in January of this year.
For additional perspective, among the list of American 17-18 all-time performers, Miladinov’s time would rank only behind Olympic icon Michael Phelps‘s National Age Group Record of 51.10. That means the Bulgarian is already faster than Luca Urlando, Ian Crocker, Jack Conger, Bobby Bollier, Matthew Josa and several other notable Americans were when they competed in the 17-18 age group.
A quick progression of the Miladinov’s 100m fly follows this impressive pattern:
56.24 2017
54.79 2018
51.91 2019
51.55 2020
Fast swim. An obvious question: what was Dressel’s 100 fly time at 17? I know he didn’t specialize in it much then, but that progression has got to be insane.
He actually broke a National HS Record in the 100 yard fly in high school – so he was certainly already ‘there,’ though his 50 free was definitely drawing more attention.
Dressel’s best times by age:
-14 – 1:00.87
-15 – 55.18
-16 – 53.31
-17 – 54.41
-18 – 52.96
-19 – 52.22
-20 – 49.86
-21 – 50.50 (this was that off year with the motorcycle accident)
-22 – 49.50
Great swimming & great progression for this rising star. Any race videos from this meet? Thanks.
Also 49.27 (23.30-25.97) for Miladinov in the 100 free. Second was Nankov (born in 2003 too) in 50.72.
Great swim, congratulations.
If my match is not wrong, he was 14 when he went 56.24 in the 100 Fly?