The entries are out for the 2014 European Championships, and if Hungarian star Katinka Hosszu holds her ground over 7 days of pool swimming, it will be quite a busy week for the Hungarian in Berlin. While she does have plenty of swims, it perhaps won’t feel as busy as some meets she’s swum recently given that this is spread out over an entire week, but by next Sunday, her toughness will have to shine through after a grueling stretch of competition.
Remember that this meet includes semi-finals for all races 200 meters and shorter, so most of Hosszu’s entries below will be swum in triplicate (though prelims, at least, shouldn’t be much to fight through for her). Her 10 individual entries, based on the day of their preliminary session. This means at least twice in finals sessions (day 4 and day 6), Hosszu could have triples if she sees out all 10 events and advances to finals in all 10 events.
- Day 1: 400 IM, 200 back
- Day 2: 100 free
- Day 3: 200 IM, 100 back
- Day 4: 100 fly
- Day 5: 200 free, 50 backstroke
- Day 6: 200 fly
- Day 7: 400 free
Other things we noticed are that relays in general, and mixed relays specifically, are getting tepid responses at best. For example, the 400 mixed free relay has just four entries: Russian, France, Turkey, and Italy.
France’s Jeremy Stravius, who has been battling injury since withdrawing from the World Championships last year, will swim only the 50 back and 100 back individually. We presume that several relays will go with that, but prior to his injury problems last year he was having a vastly improved versatility that looked like he might be a 4-5 event guy at these European Championships.
Russia’s Vlad Morozov will swim the 50 back, the 50 free, and the 100 freestyle. That’s about what we’d expect from him at a meet of this level, though he could slip in the 100 backstroke if he wanted. He’d prefer to save his energy to challenge the defending Olympic 50 champion Florent Manaudou, however.
Manaudou himself will swim the 50 free, the 100 free, and the 50 fly.
And finally, Ruta Meilutyte, despite the Youth Olympic Games’ preference that athletes stay for the duration of the meet, has stuck to her commitment to swim the 50 breaststroke at the European Championships thus far. She’s the World Record holder in that event, and if she can fight through the jet-lag, shouldn’t really have much of a challenge – she’s the only swimmer seeded better than 30 seconds. Fighting through the jet lag isn’t always easy, but the fact that Meilutyte need only swim a single event at Euros means the fatigue from a days-long adjustment might not hit her by the time she races.
Swimming begins on Monday morning Berlin time. See our full meet preview, along with times and result links here.
people have questioned since the beginning why Berlin decided to put a temp pool in the velodrome.
They hosted 2002 Euro Champs successfully at SSE and it’s a great pool set up. The Velodrome is right next to it, so the ways aren’t that far, but compared to 2002 it’s definitely doubled in distance from the competition pool to the warmup/warmdown pool.
regarding the roof: the velodrome is round. Not optimal for backstroke but good swimmers should be able to swim straight with closed eyes anyway. Remember the discussion they had about the pool in Athens for the backstrokers?! same thing.
The Iron Lady impresses me with her straight versatility: but unless she is compensated by her federation for this insane schedule why do it? I’d love to see her go after 2/4 IM’s and 2 fly and really chase those records. I don’t get the 100’s especially since she doesn’t have the relay support.
Even if Hosszu swim ONLY 200 fly or 200 IM, she would not break those WRs.
Unless,…you know…..
Haha…The french discussion about blocks is the same Cielo,Fratus and others did in Maria Lenk Trophy about generic start blocks:They are crap compared to Omega blocks.
It’s not just the French, some of the Danish team weren’t very happy with the pool either.
And the Hungarians told the same things about the circumstances
Off topic but I need an explanation.
Why the ice bucket on the homepage? 🙂
To raise awareness of (and money for) amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as Lou Gherig’s disease over here:
http://www.alsa.org/fight-als/ice-bucket-challenge.html
It’s become a thing in the States this summer.
Ok.
It starts well. 😆
Manaudou is criticizing very hard the pool in Berlin, especially the starting-blocks.
Stravius is criticizing the roof for the backstrokers.
And the national team chief, Lionel Horter, is criticizing the distance between the pools in terms of recover for the swimmers who swim multiple races.
http://www.lequipe.fr/Natation/Actualites/Manaudou-n-aime-pas-le-bassin/491024
Ah these Frenchmen! They always complain! 😆
Not all your countrymen, of course 😉 Yannick thinks its fine, Stravius too and Horter said it’s good practice for Rio.
You are lazy.
Lazy does not mean inaccurate, Bobo. From the article:
“And these annoyances don’t move the other two French team leaders. ‘The starting blocks are a bit different but it doesn’t matter,’ reckons Yanick Agnel…’There are things to complain about. But we don’t care, we’re there to swim.'”
From Stravius: “The pool is top notch. I trust the lines in the water more than the ceiling, so it doesn’t bother me.’
From Horter: “And even the French team’s staff see the positive side of these constraints. ‘This prepares them for the games in Rio,’ explained Horter. ‘This is the message that we are giving them. The swimmers are often in the cocoon during big competitions and are surprised by the… Read more »
at least it is an indoor pool !
I would have been disappointed if the frenchmen did not complain 😀
French men’s relay team in prelims.
All from Marseille.
Fabien Gilot/Mehdy Metella/Clément Mignon/Grégory Mallet.
If Gilot will probably swim the final, the others have to swim fast to impress the coach Romain Barnier.
Yannick Agnel, Jérémy Stravius and Florent Manaudou are kept in reserve for the final.