2025 European Junior Championships
- Tuesday, July 1 – Sunday, July
- X-bionic® sphere Pool, Šamorín, Slovakia
- LCM (50m)
- Start Times – Local: Prelims – 9:30 am / Finals – 6:00 pm
- Start Times – EST: Prelims – 3:30 am / Finals – 12:00 pm
- SwimSwam Preview
- Meet Central
- Entries (by event)
- Entries (by country)
- Live European Aquatics Results
- Livestream (Pay-To-Watch)
- Recaps:
Day 5 prelims of the 2025 European Junior Championships is now in the books. Saturday was an incredibly busy prelims session, featuring 8 individual events and a relay.
The action kicked off with the men’s 100 free, where Mikhail Shcherbakov led the field with a 49.55. It was a very well done swim out of Shcherbakov, as he was out in 23.99 on the opening 50, then came home in 25.56. This should be a fun semifinal to watch tonight, as Norway’s Sander Sorensen (49.84), Turkey’s Demir Ozdemir (49.86), neutral athlete Roman Zhidkov (49.90), Lithuania’s Tajus Juska (49.96), and France’s Neo Dutriaux (49.97) were all under 50 seconds as well this morning.
In the women’s 100 back, Spain’s Sara Costa de Vicente clocked the top time of the morning with a 1:01.12. Coming in 2nd this morning was another Spanish swimmer, Estella Tonrath, who went 1:01.60 in the heat following Costa. Blythe Kinsman from Great Britain was right there with Tonrath in her heat, touching in 1:01.64, which earns her the #3 seed for tonight’s semifinals.
Following his awesome performance in the 200 breast earlier in the week, Great Britain’s Filip Nowacki posted the fastest swim of the morning in the men’s 100 breast, swimming a 1:00.93. He swam a somewhat conservative race this morning, only getting out about half a second faster than the 1:01.49 he swam on the opening 100 of his 200 breast final swim.
The women’s 100 breast saw Lithuania’s Smilte Plytnykaite clock the top time in the field by over a second. Plytnykaite swam a 1:07.91, coming in as the only swimmer to go under 1:09. She took the race out fast, splitting 31.78 on the opening 50, then came home in 36.13.
Neutral athlete Georgii Iakovlev was dominant in prelims of the men’s 100 back this morning, clocking a 54.52. That time earns him the top seed for semifinals by about a second. Iakovlev was out in 26.50 on the first 50 of the race, then came home in 28,02.
Poland’s Flawia Kamzol turned in a 26.44 in the women’s 50 fly this morning, securing the top seed for semifinals tonight. It’s a tightly bound field, however, as 5 other swimmers went under 27 seconds this morning. It’s also worth noting that neutral athlete Mariia Osetrova holds a personal best of 25.79, so we should be looking for her to make some noise tonight.
In the men’s 50 fly, Great Britain’s Dean Fearn led the way, swimming a 23.71. In the following heat, Czech swimmer Jan Foltyn swam a 23.77, just off Fearn’s time.
Another Brit, Amalie Smith, posted the top time of the morning in the women’s 200 IM. Smith swam a 2:15.57, splitting 29.06 on the fly leg, 34.65 on back, 39.67 on breast, and 32.19 on free. Spain’s Estella Tonrath was the top seed coming into the race, holding a career best of 2:13.49. She was only 2:18.83 this morning and has been swimming very well this week, so we can expect her to be faster tonight.
The relay of the day is the men’s 4×200 free relay, which wound up being very closely contested for a prelims 4×200 relay. Italy clocked the top time of the morning, swimming a 7:22.00 thanks to the efforts of Andrea Zanin (1:49.89), Francesco Pernice (1:50.18), Matteo Busilacchi (1:51.87), and Alberto Ferrazza (1:50.06). France finished in 7:22.51, helped in large part by a 1:49.52 from Raphael-Sauveur Cristofini on the lead-off and a 1:49.70 on the anchor from Gabriel Crassard. Spain was 3rd this morning with a 7:22.67, helped by Dario Berdiel‘s 1:49.84 on the anchor.
