Hungarian World Record holder Kristof Milak has reportedly confirmed that he will be training for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics following news that he had been issued an ultimatum by his club team, Budapest Honved, to resume training.
Milak last raced at the 2025 Hungarian National Championships, where he qualified for the 2025 World Championships in Singapore by winning the 100 free and 200 fly and finishing 2nd in the 50 and 100 fly.
He later withdrew from Worlds, due to lack of training and “motivation” as reported by his coach Almos Szabo. This withdrawal marked the 3rd LC World Championship meet that Milak missed including Fukuoka (2023) and Doha (2024).
Hungarian news outlets began reporting last week that Milak had been issued an ultimatum by his club Budapest Honved, a multi-sport athletics club in Hungary that has reportedly been paying Milak a multi-million-Florint* salary every year. The ultimatum states that either he resumes regular in-water training, which they claim he has not done for the last 16 months, or the club will withdraw their support.
*updated to say Florint instead of Euro after checking translation from news source
There were also reports that as a result of this ultimatum, the Hungarian Swimming Federation was also debating taking away Milak’s Gerevich Scholarship (Stipendium Hungaricum Sports scholarship) of around 500,000 Hungarian Forints (≈$1,500 USD) a month.
Executive Chairman of Budapest Honved Istvan Gergely is a two-time Olympic gold medalist in Water Polo from 2004 and 2008, and he told the media, “It is a fact that Kristof does not swim, does not do swimming pool training, he only works out with Gryorgy Zala [a famous Hungarian strength and conditioning coach].”
“It’s also true that the clock is ticking, time and patience are running out, we can’t continue this game of pull and release indefinitely,” He said. “However, I don’t want to give a specific answer as to whether we will turn off the money tap, and if so, when. I still believe that Kristof will return to the pool, but faith is not enough, work is also needed.”
Milak has struggled with training since the 2022 World Championships. He withdrew from the 2023 World Championships due to mental health concerns, and reports have been following since then that his training is “inconsistent”.
Even with his training struggles, which he admitted leading up to the Olympics was not what the “Hungarian swimming community would expect,” Milak still won two medals at the 2024 Olympic Games, a gold in the 100 fly and a silver in the 200 fly.
Last week, Hungarian officials and World Aquatics announced the dates for the 2027 World Championships in Budapest. On Tuesday, World Aquatics announced the swimming competitions would take place in a multi-sport complex, the MVM Dome, rather than the Duna Arena.
In a press conference about these announcements, the president of the Hungarian Swimming Association, Sándor Wladár, listed Hungarian swimmers the audience could “almost certainly” expect to see including Hubert Kos, David Betlehem, and Zalan Sarkany
Journalists followed up by asking about Milak’s situation, and Hungary’s State Secretary for Sports Adam Schmidt told the media that he met with Milak “two and a half weeks ago” and Milak said he wanted to end his swimming career with “dignity”
Schmidt went on to say “I offered to organize a national championship in Nyíregyháza, but he laughed and said he wasn’t thinking about that, but about Los Angeles. I trust that Kristóf knows his own abilities. We know that he will be on the starting line if he can represent the level he is compared to. We are counting on Kristóf in Los Angeles.”
**All quotes have been translated from the original Hungarian.
Imagine Milak leaves these crazy Hungarian officials to train at Texas
This swimmer was very exciting to watch in Paris.
The swimming grind seems very difficult.
Weird question, but does anyone know of any studies on longterm effects of chlorine exposure on the brain?
Best to check with swimmers from the 70s and 80s who spent twice as long in the pool as the swimmers these days. 😉
And the chlorine back then was twice as bad.
Brian Godell is doing very well.
I can’t help but see this as yet one more case of the heavy toll which swimmers — who can now regularly compete into their 30’s — simply begin to fold under the constant grind of having to perform at their international best: Phelps is only the most visible example. I sympathize with him; I also see the need for his team to say: get back to the water or move on.
Fully agree that the grind of the cycle can be way too much for anyone to go through. It’s more, as currently structured, than pro athletes in most sports deal with. A lot of that is self-inflicted wounds by the sport, though.
I think to some extent, this is what we lost with the ISL. For the ISL, you didn’t have to be at your absolute peak form on the last Tuesday of July for it to mean something. You had to be in shape, you had to be in training, you had to step up and race, but you were creating a value that was more of a spectrum and less of a binary. I hope we get back… Read more »
I’m just talking trash here, chill, I’m just being silly. But maybe he should do enhanced games if they did 200 fly. If he is in his 1:50 training form, a suit and drugs would be 1:45 at least
I’ll believe it when I see it
I’m absolutely certain that he is quite suddenly laser focussed on LA28 because of this ultimatum.
Dude needs to move to Australia or something and get way from these crazy people
It’s no coincidence that Hungary’s most successful swimmers in the 2020s almost all train outside of Hungary. Milak is an exception but we see the consequences on his mental health.
Hungary has a long and successful tradition of competitive swimming and it’s not deniable that they offer great financial supports to their athletes, but their training methods are outdated. They are trying to use the 80s methods to replicate their glories in the 80s, but time has changed.
It’s worth mentioning that most swimmers, including Wladár Sándor himself, retired in their early 20s in the 1980s. They need to stop using those outdated methods if they want their swimmers to have the longevity that most international swimmers have nowadays.
you can be mean to everyone for only so long, eventually people will be sick of dealing with your BS and condescending behavior.