LEN European Junior Swimming Championships, Bucharest (ROU) – Popovici highlights the meet of next generations

 

Freshly crowned world champion David Popovici will be the star of this year’s junior Europeans, starting on Tuesday in his hometown Bucharest. Besides him, a handful of teenage stars line up who have already made an impact on the elite level.

Ten days after the swimming competitions at the FINA World Championships concluded in Budapest, Europe’s best juniors gather for the continent’s top age-group meet in Bucharest. And many of them, who were in the pool in the Duna Arena, had just a brief break and some trainings to keep up their shape – so we may even expect some big splash in the brand new swimming complex in Otopeni.

The championships wouldn’t need any better promotion than having David Popovici on the starting blocks: Romania’s new star had first made the headlines one year ago in Rome where he produced a couple of blasts, cracked junior world records. He headed to the Olympics as an emerging favourite, though he fell shy of getting a medal there by one tenth of a second (in 200m free).

A year older, aged 17, he made the expected breakthrough among the seniors by completing the 100-200m free double at the Worlds (the first one since 1973), posting junior WRs once more.

Now he is set to retain his titles among the juniors – in Rome he completed the 50-100-200m treble. Asked about the junior meet to be held in his home, Popovici said in Budapest: “It’s very symbolic and important event because it’s the first time Romania gets to host this kind of event, it’s the biggest one yet, ever and I can’t wait to be there, I can’t wait to see the people I can’t wait to hear the crowd roar.

“I hope it’s going to be even better than here (Budapest 2022) like whenever a Hungarian swimmer enters the pool I imagine and hope it’s going to be even louder when a Romanian enters the pool – there’s going to be a lot of Romanians. I can’t wait, and I hope I can win as many events as possible and have as much fun as possible.”

Before the opening press conference held on Monday afternoon in one of the official hotels, the new hero enjoyed some private time in the lobby, though every ten minutes someone recognised him and approached him for a handshake.

“Yeah, I’m fully aware that what’s coming now is the hardest part, even harder than preparing for the World Championships and performing well there” he said with a smile on his face while watching the live coverage of Wimbledon in the cafeteria. “But I have good people around me who will protect me and guide me through this phase, so I could still focus on swimming.”

At the press conference half dozen TV crews flooded the site, something one would have hardly imagined in connection with an age-group swimming event just a month ago here in Romania.

“We are just a few hours away from staging a European Championships in swimming in Romania for the very first time” Camelia Potec, president of the federation (Olympic champion in 2004) said. “We have been waiting for this for a long time, we worked hard to stage a successful event and I hope it will be a memorable one. Two sessions have already been sold out so the atmosphere will be wonderful, I think. We want to say thank for LEN for this opportunity as well as for the Government and the city of Otopeni.”

Popovici offered similar thoughts what he had been talking about at the Worlds about his excitement before the start and his will to produce great swims at the championships. “The only pressure I feel is that now I’m the leader of our national team, and I’m supposed to motivate the others and lead our guys, which is something new, but I’ve accepted this role and what comes with it” he added.

Besides Popovici, there will be one more medallist from Budapest, Poland’s Ksawery Masiuk, who finished third in the men’s 50m back – he medalled in all three backstroke events in Rome, including golds in the 100m and 200m.

Among the Rome 2021 champions, Estonia’s Eneli Efimova should be mentioned as she claimed silver medal at the short-course Europeans last November in Kazan. France’s Sascha Velly stunned the open water field by winning the second leg of the LEN Open Water Cup in Piombino – at the Worlds he couldn’t repeat that performance, now he is looking for success in the pool over the longer distances.

It won’t be easy since the Turks ruled the 400-800-1500m events both among the boys and the girls a year ago (won 6/6). They also look for repeating that feat, in the women’s field Merve Tuncel completed the treble last July and she is back for more in Bucharest.

As a curiosity, the Chmielewski twins, Krysztof and Michal from Poland, who finished 1-2 in the 200m fly in Rome, are also here in Bucharest and eye the top two places once more.

The heats start at 10.00 (local time), the final and semi-final sessions kick off at 17.00 – LEN offers free live streaming, visit www.len.eu for more.