Milak’s 1:44.42 Anchor Drives Hungary’s 4×200 FR National Record (RELAY ANALYSIS)

2022 EUROPEAN AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS

To open up the 2022 European Championships, the Hungarian quartet of Nandor Nemeth, Richard Marton, Balazs Hollo, and Kristof Milak won the men’s 4×200 free relay title in a time of 7:05.38, marking the first time since 1954 that Hungary has won this event at Euros. They also broke the national record time of 7:06.27 by nearly a second, which was clocked by the same group of four at this year’s World Championships.

Hungary, 2022 World Championships vs. 2022 European Championships:

Hungary, 2022 Worlds (old national record) Hungary, 2022 Europeans (new national record)
Richard Marton — 1:48.12 Nandor Nemeth — 1:46.28
Nandor Nemeth — 1:45.73 Richard Marton — 1:47.01
Balasz Hollo – 1:47.74 Balasz Hollo — 1:47.67
Kristof Milak – 1:44.68 Kristof Milak — 1:44.42
7:06.27 7:05.38

Swapping Marton and Nemeth in the first half of the relay seems to be the primary reason why Hungary was faster at Euros than Worlds, because Marton was over a second faster on a relay start compared to a flat start whereas Nemeth was only half a second slower on a flat start compared to a relay start. In addition, both Hollo and Milak were faster at Euros than they were at Worlds.

France had a substantial lead at the halfway mark and was winning by over a second with 200 meters left, but Milak’s 1:44.42 anchor coming from behind propelled Hungary to victory.

LEADOFFS:

Antonio Djakovic had a strong swim to give Switzerland the head start, setting a season-best time of 1:46.10 that was faster than the 1:46.61 he swam at the World Championships. Germany’s Lukas Märtens swam the second-fastest leadoff time at 1:46.22, which is rather impressive considering that he had been diagnosed with COVID-19 following Worlds.

Hungary’s Nandor Nemeth set a near-best time of 1:46.28, just off the 1:46.19 he clocked at last year’s Olympic games.

Country Swimmer Time
Switzerland Antonio Djakovic 1:46.10
Germany Lukas Martens 1:46.22
Hungary Nandor Nemeth 1:46.28
Italy Marco De Tullio 1:46.47
France Hadrien Salvan 1:46.50
Great Britain Matt Richards 1:48.16
Sweden Robin Hanson 1:48.56
Irsael Denis Loketev 1:48.78

ROLLING SPLITS:

Milak’s 1:44.42 was way ahead of the pack, but both Italy’s Stefano Di Cola and France’s Wissam-Amaigh Yebba had great swims of their own, with these three swimmers being the only ones in the field under the 1:46 barrier. Yebba’s 1:45.92 rolling split was nearly two seconds faster than his flat start best time set in June 2022, which indicates that he could be in for a major time drop in the individual 200 free later this meet. Just from this year, Yebba has lowered his personal best from a 1:48.27 to 1:47.75.

Another swimmer who was diagnosed with COVID-19 after Worlds was Switzerland’s Noe Ponti, whose 1:46.42 relay split seems to indicate that he is in good shape. Matt Richards, Kieran Bird, Jacob Whittle, and Tom Dean of Great Britain were all off their bests and finished sixth, but this could be attributed to the fatigue of having World Championships, Commonwealth Games, and Europeans all in one summer.

Country Swimmer Time
Hungary Kristof Milak 1:44.42
Italy Stefano Di Cola 1:45.36
France Wissam-Amaigh Yebba 1:45.92
Switzerland Roman Mitykuov 1:46.39
Switzerland Noe Ponti 1:46.42
Italy Gabriele Detti 1:46.51
Great Britain Tom Dean 1:46.69
Hungary Richard Marton 1:47.01
France Roman Fuchs 1:47.04
Israel Ron Polonsky 1:47.24
France Enzo Tesic 1:47.51
Israel Bar Soloveychik 1:47.53
Hungary Balasz Hollo 1:47.67
Italy Lorenzo Galossi 1:47.91
Great Britain Kieran Bird 1:48.09
Israel Daniel Namir 1:48.43
Germany Poul Zelmann 1:48.45
Sweden Victor Johansson 1:48.56
Germany Henning Muehlleitner 1:48.92
Switzerland Nils Liess 1:49.35
Great Britain Jacob Whittle 1:49.44
Germany Timo Sorgius 1:49.99
Sweden Marcus Holmquist 1:50.26
Sweden Elias Persson 1:51.35

In This Story

4
Leave a Reply

Subscribe
Notify of

4 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
NathenDrake
1 year ago

And the Indianapolis magic four is nearly cut 3 seconds of the previous national record in just 2 months, after swimming again TOGETHER. They are like brothers, they started swimming and racing againts each other in Hungary nearly a decade ago.
The prevoius record from a competiton was 7:08,24, set in Rome in 2009.

Brownish
Reply to  NathenDrake
1 year ago

We nearly never had 4 freestyle swimmer men at the same time. The other question is who will be the 4th in the 4×100.

NathenDrake
Reply to  Brownish
1 year ago

Bohus can bounce back, I hope…

NB1
1 year ago

the video would be nice, if and when up

About Yanyan Li

Yanyan Li

Although Yanyan wasn't the greatest competitive swimmer, she learned more about the sport of swimming by being her high school swim team's manager for four years. She eventually ventured into the realm of writing and joined SwimSwam in January 2022, where she hopes to contribute to and learn more about …

Read More »