In the midst of several Championship Records and even a World Record sparking fire so far at the 2015 European Short Course Championships in Netanya, Israel, several countries have also seen their own National Records fall in droves, especially on this, day 2 of the competition.
The nations of Sweden, Slovakia, Israel, Luxembourg and Iceland all saw at least one of their nation’s records get stripped and in its place a shiny new mark from medalists and non-medalists alike today.
Sweden led the charge with two national records, both on the men’s side. First Erik Persson eclipsed his own national record in the men’s 200m breaststroke, overtaking his previous mark of 2:05.47. That time was what Persson clocked just in semis this morning. As such, his new time of 2:04.42 dropped over a second from his less-than-12-hours-old clocking to keep his name in the record books as the king of the event in Sweden. Persson finished 5th in the men’s 200m breaststroke final.
Persson’s teammate, Simon Sjödin also scored a new Swedish National Record, racing his way to a 5th place finish in the men’s 400m IM race as well. Sjödin held the previous mark of 4:06.84 from 2014’s Swedish National Championships, but replaced that with his new 4:05.06 outing at these championships. He now represents the only Swedish male to have dipped beneath the 4:06 threshold in the short course version of the event.
Slovakia got in on the record-breaking action in the form of Richard Nagy lowering his own 400m IM mark he set back in 2014 at the Doha Short Course World Championships (4:07.94). Today, however, Nagy annihilated that mark to score a new National Record of 4:04.73 for his country. He ultimately finished 4th in the event by just .05 of a second.
Also in that 400m IM was Raphael Stacchiotti of Luxembourg. Finishing 6th overall, he, too cracked his own national mark in the event, finishing in 4:06.48. That time knocked a full three seconds off of his previous national record of 4:09.76 set just this past October.
Finally, a country not exactly used to seeing its name on the international swimming medal standings is Iceland. Yet backstroker Eyglo Osk Gustafsdottir made it happen tonight, reaching the podium in the women’s 100m distance in a time of 57.42. That time not only garnered Gustafsdottir the bronze medal, but it also knocked her previous record of 59.75 in the event out of the water.
Why is it so difficult to locate an actual schedule of races. Psych sheets are of limited utility. Most of us will not be able to sit glued to the live stream for hours on end. If one ins interested in a particular race, is there no way to determine in advance what day and time it is being held?
Mark – times are listed on the live results “By Day” page here: http://netanya2015.microplustiming.com/index_web.php