Sabbioni Breaks Italian 50m Back Record, Now Owns All 3 Distances

2015 EUROPEAN SHORT COURSE SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS AT THE WINGATE INSTITUTE IN NETANYA, ISRAEL

• Wednesday, December 2nd-6th
• Prelims at 9:30 am local (2:30 AM EST)/Finals at 5:30 pm local (10:30 am EST)
• Meet Information
• Event Timeline
• Live Stream: LEN Webcast
• Live Results

Day 5 of the 2015 European Short Course Championships began with a bang for Italy’s Simone Sabbioni. The backstroker had already taken down Italy’s national records in the 100m and 200m distances over the course of the meet, and in the semi-final race of the men’s 50m backstroke he made it a clean sweep.

Sabbioni clocked a field-leading time of 23.23 in semis to earn the right to lane 4 for the final. He also lowered the Italian national record by .16. The previous mark of 23.39 had been set by Niccolò Bonacchi at the 2014 FINA World Championships in Doha.

In the final, a half hour later, Sabbioni lowered his brand new record by .14 to settle it at 23.09. He earned the silver medal, sharing it with Great Britain’s Christopher Walker-Hebborn, who also finished with 23.09. Gold went to Poland’s Tomasz Polewka in 22.96. With that swim, Sabbioni, Walker-Hebborn and Polewka all move into the world’s top five for the season:

Italian Records After 2015 European Short Course Championships

50 SCM backstroke  23.09  Simone Sabbioni
100 SCM backstroke  50.57  Simone Sabbioni
200 SCM backstroke  1:50.75  Simone Sabbioni