Tomoe Hvas Punches Norwegian 100 Fly Record To Nab Top Seed

2021 LEN EUROPEAN SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Tuesday, November 2nd – Sunday, November 7th
• Aquatics Palace, Kazan Russia
• SCM (25m)
• Live results

The men’s 100m butterfly semi-final tonight at these European Short Course Championships saw Norwegian athlete Tomoe Hvas surge to the top seed with a time of 49.22.

That edged out reigning LCM 200 fly world record holder and Olympic champion Kristof Milak of Hungary by nearly half a second. Milak touched in 49.71 while Poland’s Jakub Majerski rounded out the top 3 in 49.73 for tomorrow night’s final.

For Hvas, the 21-year-old opened in 22.79 and closed in 26.43 to put up the fastest time of his career. Entering this meet Hvas held a personal best of 49.88 from this same competition 2 years ago in Glasgow. As such, he sliced .66 from that previous outing to log the 49.22 here tonight.

Additionally, his time positions the Norwegian just outside the top 10 performers all-time in this event.

Hvas competes for the LA Current within the International Swimming League and already nailed a new 200m fly national record at a match in September. He originally had committed to compete for the University of North Carolina after the 2020 Olympic Games.

Of note, also in tonight’s semi-final, Czech Republic swimmer Jan Sefl produced a new national mark of his own, punching a time of 50.46 to place 12th. The former national record stood at the 50.51 Michael Rubacek logged way back during the supersuit era of 2009.