Popovici’s Romanian National Championships Lineup Includes 100 Fly

2025 ROMANIAN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Wednesday, April 9th – Sunday, April 13th
• Otopeni, Romania
• LCM (50m)
• Meet Central

The 2025 Romanian National Championships are taking place this week, spanning Wednesday, April 9th through Sunday, April 13th in Otopeni.

Olympic gold medalist David Popovici is indeed expected to race, with the 20-year-old entered in the men’s 50m free, 100m free, 200m free and 100m fly.

Popovici’s dominance in the 100m and 200m free events is well-known.

The Romanian ranks as the 2nd-fastest man ever in the 100m free with his personal best and former world record of 46.86, sitting only behind Olympic champion Pan Zhanle of China, who blasted an other-worldly outing of 46.40 en route to gold at the 2024 Olympic Games.

As for the 200m free, Popovici ranks as the 3rd-best performer of all time, owning a career-swiftest result of 1:42.97 from the 2022 European Championships. Only reigning world record holder Paul Biedermann of Germany and American Olympic icon Michael Phelps have been faster. The former owns the WR at 1:42.00, while the latter was 1:42.96 in his prolific career.

The 50m free and 100m fly are both a bit of a wild card for Popovici, although he has solid swims on his resume in both events.

Popovici’s personal best in the 50m free checks in at the 22.16 logged for gold at the 2022 European Junior Championships. The 100m fly saw the Romanian post a time of 52.30 at the 2023 Romanian Championships.

He’ll need to drop time in both of those events to come within range of the World Aquatics ‘A’ standards of 22.05 in the 50m free and 51.77 in the 100m fly, especially in the latter race.

Earlier this year, Popovic told the press,“Even after becoming an Olympic champion, my goals haven’t changed.

“I just want to swim comfortably and as fast as I can, exceeding my limits.”