Sjostrom & Le Clos Grab Gold To Kick Off 2024 Euro Meet

2024 LUXEMBOURG EURO MEET

• Friday, January 26th – Sunday, January 28th
• Centre National Sportif et Culturel d’Coque, Luxembourg
• LCM (50m)
• Meet Central
• SwimSwam Preview #1/SwimSwam Preview #2
• Paris 2024 Olympic Games Qualifying Event
• Entries/Results
• Livestream

The 2024 Luxembourg Euro Meet kicked off today with the 3-day competition representing a qualification opportunity for this year’s Olympic Games in Paris.

Olympic gold medalist Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden made her presence known right off the bat, racing in the women’s 50m fly.

The 30-year-old captured the gold with relative ease, clocking a time of 25.33 to beat the field by nearly a second. Behind her was countrywoman Sara Juvenik who touched in 26.22 just ahead of Dutch swimmer Tessa Giele who bagged bronze in 26.55.

This Euro Meet marks Sjostrom’s first outing of the new year, last having competed on the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup circuit. Sjostrom placed 4th overall in the series’ point standings, with her fastest times checking in at 23.95 in the 50m free in Budapest, 53.25 in the 100m free in Budapest and a 24.97 in the 50m fly in Athens.

As for the men’s 50m fly this evening, it was World Junior Record holder Diogo Ribeiro of Portugal who topped the podium.

19-year-old Ribeiro stopped the clock in a mark of 23.41 to get the edge over short course co-World Record holder Szebasztian Szabo of Hungary

The Hungarian nabbed silver in 23.50 and Austria’s national record holder Simon Bucher rounded out the top 3 finishers in 23.57. Of note, South African Olympic champion Chad Le Clos was also in the final, capturing 5th in 23.62.

The 100m freestyle World Record holder 19-year-old David Popovici of Romania placed 8th in 23.97, within striking distance of his best-ever 23.74 from April of 2023.

Le Clos had earlier competed in the men’s 200m fly, securing the top spot in a final effort of 1:58.00. That beat Giacomo Carini of Italy by just .22, with the Italian clocking 1:58.22 as the only other athlete under the 2:00 barrier.

Two meet records bit the dust by the time the night’s session was over, both coming in the 100m backstroke event and both coming from a French swimmer.

23-year-old Yohann Ndoye-Brouard took down the benchmark for the men, turning in a time of 53.12 for the gold. That cleared the field by over 2 seconds en route to overtaking the previous Euro Meet record of 53.80 reigning World Record holder Thomas Ceccon logged at the 2020 edition of this competition.

Ndoye-Brouard split 25.63/27.49 to get the job done. His outing fell just .10 shy of his season-best 53.02 notched in Amiens last month to rank #3 in the world.

Mary-Ambre Moluh struck gold on the women’s side, registering a 1back of 59.67 as the sole competitor under the minute mark. Opening in 29.11 and closing in 30.56, the 18-year-old’s effort surpassed the previous meet record of 1:00.00 Hungarian Olympic champion Katinka Hosszu hit in 2016.

Moluh’s result this evening matches the best time of her young career and just the 3rd occasion she’s been under the 1:00 barrier. She first established this 59.67 PB nearly 2 years ago.

Additional Winners

• Serbia’s Anja Crevar topped the women’s 400m IM field in a time of 4:43.89, beating the 4:46.26 put up in the heats of the event at last year’s World Championships.
• Ukrainian Oleksil Hrabarov earned gold in the men’s 400m IM in 4:23.21. He took silver in this event at last year’s European Junior Championships, clocking a time there in Belgrade of 4:22.94,
• Maya Werner of Germany took the women’s 800m free in 8:35.48 while teammate Leo Leverkus won the men’s 1500m free in 15:52.91.