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Disclaimer: Swim of the Week is not meant to be a conclusive selection of the best overall swim of the week, but rather one Featured Swim to be explored in deeper detail. The Swim of the Week is an opportunity to take a closer look at the context of one of the many fast swims this week, perhaps a swim that slipped through the cracks as others grabbed the headlines, or a race we didn’t get to examine as closely in the flood of weekly meets.
Czech sprinter Daniel Gracik blasted his way to a new National Record in the men’s 50 butterfly (SCM) last weekend at the Slovakia Swimming Cup in what was his first competition of 2025.
Gracik, who turned 21 just three days before the swim, clocked 22.48 to lower this previous Czech Record of 22.68, set at the 2023 European Short Course Championships in Otopeni.
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The performance, which was done in the prelims and marked Gracik’s lone swim of the meet, moves Gracik into 12th in the 2025-26 world rankings and makes him the 41st-fastest European of all-time.
2025-2026 SCM Men 50 FLY
PONTI
21.51
| 2 | Szebasztian Szabo | HUN | 21.59 | 12/03 |
| 3 | Ilya Kharun | CAN | 21.69 | 10/19 |
| 4 | Egor Kornev | RUS | 21.73 | 11/07 |
| 5 | Josh Liendo | CAN | 21.91 | 10/25 |
| 6 | Teong Tzen Wei | SGP | 21.93 | 10/25 |
| 7 | Maxime GROUSSET | FRA | 21.95 | 12/02 |
| 8 | Daniel Zaitsev | EST | 22.06 | 12/02 |
| 9 | Finlay BROOKS | USA | 22.09 | 10/19 |
| 10 | Simone STEFANI | ITA | 22.13 | 12/03 |
| 11 | Oleg KOSTIN | RUS | 22.17 | 11/07 |
| 12 | Joshua Gammon | GBR | 22.19 | 12/12 |
Prior to this, he hadn’t raced since the 2024 Short Course World Championships last December in Budapest. There, he placed 30th in the 50 fly (23.03), 33rd in the 100 fly (51.45) and 47th in the 100 free (48.66).
He also represented the Czech Republic at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, placing 27th in the men’s 100 fly (52.61) and 39th in the 100 free (49.65). In the month leading up to the Games, he set new Czech Records in the 100 free (48.93), 50 fly (23.23) and 100 fly (51.40).
In 2022, he made his presence felt on the junior international stage, winning gold in the boys’ 100 fly (52.69) and silver in the 50 fly (23.94) at the European Junior Championships, and then less than two months later, won two more silvers in the 50 fly (23.46) and 100 fly (52.51) at the World Junior Championships.
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