Wild Snags 200 Back Silver For OLY Qualification, Grabowski Lowers AUT Record

2021 LEN EUROPEAN AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Swimming: Monday, May 17th – Sunday, May 23rd, 2021
• Budapest, Hungary
• Prelims at 10:00 am local/Finals at 6:00 pm local
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The women’s 200m backstroke saw Italy’s Margherita Panziera get to the wall first in a new championships record time of 2:06.08 while Great Britain’s Cassie Wild nabbed silver in 2:07.74 and Hungary’s Katalin Burian rounded out the top 3 in 2:07.87.

Wild’s time was especially noteworthy, as the 20-year-old training partner of 100m back victor here, Kathleen Dawson, had never been under the 2:10 threshold in this event prior to tonight’s swim.

At the British Olympic Selection Trials last month, Wild produced a time of 2:10.94 to finish over 2 seconds behind Dawson in pursuit of doubling up on Tokyo qualification with her 100m back. Flash forward here to Budapest, and Wild logged a prelim swim of 2:12.04 before dropping that way down to 2:09.31 to make tonight’s final.

Here in Budapest this evening, hanging alongside Panziera for most of the race and fending off Burian’s furious arm-spinning at the end, Wild checked in with a monster PB of 2:07.74. Splitting 1:02.08/1:05.66, Wild’s head-turning swim now renders her as the 3rd fastest British performer of all-time, ahead of Dawson and only behind national record holder Gemma Spofforth (2:06.66) and Lizzie Simmonds (2:06.79).

Also of note, finishing just off the podium was Lena Grabowski, with the Austrian pushing herself to a new lifetime best and national record of 2:08.19.

Prior to this meet, the 18-year-old also had never been under the 2:10 threshold but she managed to get under the barrier in last night’s semi-final, punching a new PB of 2:08.60 to claim the 2nd seed.

Whereas last night she split 1:04.01/1:04.59, tonight Grabowski grabbed her record in 1:03.63/1:04.56.