Robert Badea Crushes Romanian 200 IM Record To Kick Off Nationals

2026 ROMANIAN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Wednesday, April 22nd  – Sunday, Apri 26th
• Otopeni, Romania
• LCM (50m)
• Live Results

The 2026 Romanian National kicked off today, Wednesday, April 22nd, with some of the nation’s fastest swimmers taking to the Otopeni pool.

Right off the bat, we saw our first national record bite the dust, with 18-year-old Robert Badea putting up a new benchmark in the men’s 200m IM.

Racing in this evening’s final, Badea stopped the clock at a speedy result of 1:58.86.

That beat the field handily, with the next-closest swimmer represented by Matei State, who touched in 2:01.42, followed by Darius Coman, who rounded out the podium in 2:01.60.

As for Badea, the teen’s time tonight checked in as a new lifetime best and his first-ever foray under the 1:59-threshold.

Entering this five-day competition, Badea held the Romanian standard at the 1:59.95 he put on the books at the 2025 edition of these championships. That means he managed to hack over a second off his best-ever en route to gold this evening.

Although when comparing his past and new splits, Badea was faster on the final 50m last time around, he knocked well over a second off his front-half to bring about his new PB.

The Romanian now sits just outside the list of top 25 performers worldwide on the season in a time that would have rendered him the 4th-place finisher at the 2024 European Championships. His performance also obliterated the 2:01.26 he notched for 7th place at last year’s World Junior Championships, hosting in this very city.