Gigler Clocks Another Austrian Free Record, Reitshammer Qualifies In 200 IM

2019 ATUS GRAZ TROPHY

• Friday, April 26th – Sunday, April 18th
• Indoor Pool Eggenberg/Auster, Graz, Austria
• LCM
• Austrian 2019 World Championships Selection Criteria
• Entry List
• SwimSwam Meet Preview
• Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap
• Live Results

The 2019 Graz Trophy concluded with 2 additional Austrian National Records being wiped off the books. First up was Heiko Gigler, who nailed a new 100m freestyle mark en route to gold.

The first sub-50 second men’s 100m freestyle time of the day actually came from Alexander Trampitsch in the morning, as the reigning national record holder hit a time of 49.89. In tonight’s final, however, Gigler doubled up on his 50m free NR for last night with a new mark of 49.59 to take the gold tonight.

Gigler’s time overtook Trampitsch’s old time of 49.79 from 2017, but fell short of the 49.29 mark needed to qualify for this summer’s World Championships.

Bernhard Reitshammer clinched the 2nd national standard of the day, clocking a morning 50m breast effort of 27.33. That outperformed his own former record of 27.47 notched at the 2018 European Championships. His time also dipped under the 27.39 Austrian Federation-dictated time needed for Gwangju.

Reitshammer opted out of hte 50m breast final, leaving Christopher Rothbauer to claim gold in 27.84, the only sub-28 second time of the field tonight.

Instead, Reitshammer chose to focus on the 200m IM event, a race he would wind up winning by over 3 seconds. clocking a time of 2:00.28 for the gold, Reitshammer fell just .06 shy of the FINA A cut for Gwangju, but managed to clear the 2:01.42 time minimum set by the OSV for this summers World Championships.