Hosszu, Sakci, Ntountounaki Ready To Race At Acropolis Swim Open

2022 ACROPOLIS SWIM OPEN

• May 13th – 15th
• Athens Olympic Aquatic Center, Athens, Greece
• LCM (50m)
• Entries

The 34th edition of the Acropolis Swim Open is nearly upon us, with action from Athens, Greece kicking off on Friday, May 13th.

A prize purse worth € 70 000 (~$74,000 USD) is up for grabs, with the program following a traditional morning prelims/evening finals format. Of note, the C-finals will include the junior/youth finals, with girls and boys born 2005 and 2004 and later, respectively.

• Details on prize money here.

Highlighting the women’s entries is 32-year-old Katinka Hosszu of Hungary. The multi-Olympic champion is set to take on the 200m fly, 200m IM and 400m IM events here in Athens.

Although Hosszu ranks outside the top 15 in the 200m IM and 200m fly, she does represent the 9th fastest performer in the 400IM with a season-best of 4:38.89. We’ll see what the Hungarian has in store for this meet with the World Championships on the horizon for next month.

Another woman to watch is Anna Ntountounaki of the host nation. The 26-year-old is primed to contest the 50m free, 100m free, 100m back and 50m fly. The versatile sprinter was the first-ever Greek woman to win a gold medal in swimming at a European Championships when she snagged 100m fly gold in Budapest last year.

Additional high-profile women here in Athens include Katja Fain of Slovenia, Marlene Kahler of Austria, Eneli Jefimova of Estonia, as well as Edinburgh swimmers Katie Goodburn, Anna Morgan, Kara Hanlon and Katie Robertson.

On the men’s end, breaststroking ace Emre Sakci is among the entrants. He’ll be racing the 50m free, 100m free, 50m breast, 100m free and 50m fly. The 24-year-old Turk is coming off taking silver in the men’s 50m breast at the 2020 European Short Course Championships which took place last year.

The bronze medalist in the men’s 50m free from that same meet, Kristian Gkolomeev, is also entered in this meet, as are British sprinter David Cumberlidge, Serbian veteran Velimir Stjepanovic and Turk Berkay Oegretir.