Szebastian Szabo & Kristian Gkolomeev Spar At 2022 Acropolis Swim Open

2022 ACROPOLIS SWIM OPEN

• May 13th – 15th
• Athens Olympic Aquatic Center, Athens, Greece
• LCM (50m)
• SwimSwam Preview
• Entries
• Complete Results

The 2022 Acropolis Swim Open wrapped up yesterday from Athens, Greece, with the likes of Katinka Hosszu (HUN), Emre Sakci (TUR), Apostolos Christou (GRE) and Szebasztian Szabo (GRE) am0ng the competitors.

The 25-year-old Christou fired off a trio of victories, including the 100m free, 50m back, and 100m back.

In the 100m free, Christou produced a winning time of 49.46, just out-touching Szabo by .09 (49.55). Christou opened in 23.76 and closed in 25.70 to lead the Hungarian as the only two swimmers to dip under the 50-second threshold in the event.

Christou’s winning effort of 24.97 in the 50m back scored the Greek a new meet record, tying the 8th fastest time of his career. He’s been as fast as 24.49 in his career, a time he clocked in the semi-finals en route to becoming the 4th place finisher at the 2021 European Championships.

The Olympian rounded out his treble of wins with a podium-topping performance of 53.64 in the 100m back. Christou’s time put him just outside the top 15 performers in the world this season and sits within a second of his personal best of 52.77 from 2021.

The aforementioned Szabo also racked up multiple wins, taking both the men’s 50m and 100m fly races.

In the former, the 26-year-old logged an effort of 23.43 to edge out a pair of Greek swimmers in Stergios-Marios Mpilas and Kristian Gkolomeev. Mpilas touched in 23.89 as runner-up while Gkolomeev rounded out the top 3 in 24.08.

The 100m fly event saw Szabo hit a mark of 52.39 to seal the deal as the only swimmer to dip under the 53-second threshold. His result checked in as a new meet record, although it was well off his lifetime best of 51.28.

For Gkolomeev’s part, the 28-year-old World Championships silver medalist posted a mark of 22.22 to take the men’s 50m free. Szabo was next in 22.37 to set the pair up once again next to each other on the podium.

On the women’s side, Slovenia’s Katja Fain produced swims quick enough for gold in a trio of freestyle events including the 100m, 200m and 400m distances.

In the former, Fain punched a time of 55.52 while in the latter two distances she scored efforts of 1:57.83 and 4:09.73 to produce new meet records in both.

Her 200m free here represents a new career-quickest standard, outperforming her previous PB of 1:58.00 from just this past March. Fain’s 400m free also hacked off some time from the fastest the Slovenian has ever been, easily surpassing her 4:11.01 also from March.

Hungary’s multi-Olympic gold medalist from Rio Katinka Hosszu swept the women’s IM events, earning times of 2:14.76 in the 200m IM and 4:41.81 in the 400m IM. She’s been as fast as 4:38.89 in the 400m IM to currently rank 9th in the world this season.

Greece’s Anna Ntountounaki was successful in her butterfly specialty, reaping gold in the 50m in a new meet record of 25.89 while she notched 57.93 in the 100m distance.

Ntountounaki is her nation’s record holder in the 50m fly with the 25.65 she secured at last year’s European Championships. She also is Greece’s fastest woman ever in the 100m fly with her mark of 57.25 from the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Estonia’s Eneli Jefimova, just 15 years of age, swept the women’s breaststroke events. She registered a mark of 30.69 in the 50m breast, 1:06.81 in the 100m breast and 2:28.37 in the 200m breast to complete the sweep.

The 50m breast result overtakes the teen’s previous personal best of 30.83 from last year, while the 100m breast fell just shy of her 1:06.47 PB also from last year. The Finnish budding star’s 200m breast PB remains at the 2:26.88 she put up in Stockholm also in 2021.

Additional Winners:

• Daniil Gioyrtzidis of Greece beat his countryman and former World Junior Record holder Apostolos Papastamos in the men’s 400m IM, hitting 4:20.00 to Papstamos’ 4:21.42.
• Eyaggelos Akrygiannis posted a winning time of 1:59.34 as a new meet record in the men’s 200m back while Moldova’s Tatiana Salcutan proved quickest in the women’s race in 2:14.68.
• Berkay Oegretir notched a time of 1:00.52 to win the 100m breast and doubled up on gold with a mark of 2:11.39 to take the 200m. In between those distances was Emre Sakci, also from Turkey, posting 27.68 to take the 50m sprint breast.
• The women’s 800m free saw Austrian Marlene Kahler, also of the USC Trojans, hit 8:51.24 while Greece’s Dimitrios Markos won the men’s 400m free in 3:50.95.
• Serbia’s Velimi Stjepanovic topped the podium twice, racing to a 1:48.53 in the 200m free and 1:58.44 in the 200m fly.
• Finally, Greece’s Theodora Drakoy was another multi-event winner, making it happen in the 50m back (28.33), 100m back (1:02.05) and 50m free (25.46).