The 25-year-old missed the longed-for precious metal in the final over 200 m crawl in fifth place on Monday, but in 1:45.11 minutes the Lower Austrian improved his Austrian record again by 6 hundredths of a second. Gold went to Romania’s David Popovici in 1:43.21, while Korean Hwang Sun-woo (1:44.47) took silver ahead of Britain’s Tom Dean (1:44.98).
“Fifth in the world, new best time, very good race, very satisfied”, Auböck drew a positive conclusion in the catacombs of the Duna Arena. Although the Bad Vöslauer mourned the surprise a little, “but nobody should expect that it should have been a medal. Fifth place in the world in the 200 m crawl, I think people don’t really know how good that is was,” emphasized Auböck: “I know it, and that’s actually enough.”
EM in August
Auböck, who was the second fastest in the heat, was 13 hundredths short of the medal. On Saturday, the short course world champion missed the bronze medal on his parade course over 400 m freestyle just like at the Olympics in Tokyo, but improved his personal best several times. “I broke important sound barriers, I can build on that in the future.”
Auböck is one of the best swimmers in the world and he wants to achieve further milestones in the coming years. “I know I can swim 1:44,” he said. Auböck is now planning to switch off a little with a view to the EM in Rome in August. “It stole so much power, these three days. They certainly took two years of my life from me,” said Auböck and laughed: “It’s just so brutal to set personal bests at these insane heights and then finish fourth and fifth. The Stress you go through is hard to describe.”
Source: Nachrichten
