2022 EUROPEAN AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Thursday, August 11 – Wednesday, August 17, 2022 (pool swimming)
- Rome, Italy
- Parco Del Foro Italico
- LCM (50m)
- Meet Central
- Event Schedule
- Entries
- Live Results
In a press conference prior to the start of the 2022 European Championships, Italian swimmer Federico Burdisso was asked about the high expectations placed on Italy to perform in front of a home crowd in Rome. His answer was simply that it didn’t bother him.
“We don’t feel any pressure while competing at home,” Burdisso said. “We are in upbeat mood, we have a fantastic team, a real team, we know each other, each of us, we are young, hungry for success, it’s going to be great to race in front of our fans.”
Italy is coming off of one of their most successful World Championships ever, where they took home five golds, two silvers, and two bronzes, with one of the golds being an upset over the United States in the men’s 4×100 medley relay. Burdisso swam the fly leg on that relay, and also competed in the men’s 100 fly individually. At Euros, he will race in the 100 and 200 fly, where he will be competing against Kristof Milak, the reigning World Champion and European record holder in both events.
“There is no challenge here, Kristof is simply out of reach. I only hope that I can reduce the gap a bit next year.” Burdisso said of racing Milak. “I’m still looking forward to the races, wish to get medals and repeat our win in the medley relay.”
Italy has not won a men’s relay at the European Championships since 2012.
Another swimmer contending for titles at Europeans is Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu, who currently has 96 medals across the Olympics, long course/short course World Championships, and long course/short course European Championships. Her goal is to hit 100 medals, which she can potentially pick up in her 200 fly, 200 IM, and 400 IM races. And although she’s considering retirement prior to the start of the 2024 Paris Olympics, but doesn’t plan on hanging up the goggles just yet.
“I think it would be something special to get 100 medals since nobody has achieved that yet,” Hosszu said. “I may have a chance here as I’ll swim relays, but even if I reach my goal, that wouldn’t mean that I’m done with swimming.”
Although Hosszu is the best at the 200 strokes and IM events, she does sometimes wish that she was good at 50s because it’s “much easier to have one length as Sarah [Sjostrom] does”.
“However, the way I was born… the events suiting me the best are still the medley and 200 fly so I keep on doing them, however hard they are.” Hosszu said.
Speaking of Sarah Sjostrom, the Swede swimmer will also be competing at Euros, racing the 50 free and 50 fly events. She said that she dropped the 100 free and fly, both of which are events that she holds the world record in, because she came down with COVID-19 after Worlds and wasn’t used to having two major international meets in one summer.
Sjostrom will be making a return to the pool she broke the 100 fly World record for the first time at the 2009 World Championships, back when she was 15 years old.
“I love to swim in Rome, obviously this is one of my favourite pools,” Sjostrom said. “When I came to Rome in 2009, I surprised everyone… I think it won’t be such a surprise if I won this time.”
Much like what she did during the Tokyo Olympics last year, Sjostrom dyed her hair purple because “many Swedish girls have blonde hair” and she “wanted to surprise people when she takes her swimming cap off”.
