European Championships: Austria’s swimmers finish in record time

The Austrian swimmers have the evening off. That wasn’t the plan. At the start of the pool events in Paris, no Austrian Swimming Federation (OSV) athlete managed to advance from the heats.

Luka Mladenovic came closest to missing out on a place in the final session. The three-time U23 European champion finished 21st in the 100-meter breaststroke with a time of 1:00.28, just 15 hundredths of a second shy of the semifinals. At the last European Championships, that time would have been enough. “I’m surprised,” said the 22-year-old. He swam “all out,” but had usually been slower over this distance earlier in the day. Mladenovic wasn’t about to “bury his head in the sand,” however. The 200-meter breaststroke follows on Wednesday, and the 50-meter breaststroke on Friday.

Simon Bucher’s deficit was greater, and his self-criticism even more pronounced. The European Championship silver medalist from Belgrade finished no higher than 34th in the 50-meter butterfly with a time of 23.72 seconds. “That was too hectic and nothing worthwhile,” the Tyrolean swimmer said afterward.

Lukas Edl was the best Austrian, finishing 28th in 23.56 seconds, but he too was eliminated in the heats.

The women’s relay team also missed out on the final, but delivered the best Austrian performance of the morning. Iris Julia Berger, Aviva Hollinsky, Marlene Kahler, and Nida Omid finished 12th in the 4 x 200-meter freestyle relay with a time of 8:04.27 minutes. They improved the eleven-year-old Austrian record from Kazan by 96 hundredths of a second.