Of course, the coup did not come entirely unexpectedly. Bernhard Reitshammer (backstroke), Valentin Bayer (breaststroke), Simon Bucher (dolphin) and Heiko Gigler (crawler) secured the second European Championship medal in an OSV relay in 3:33.28 minutes. About half an hour earlier, Felix Auböck had finished fourth in the final over 400 m freestyle in 3:45.76 minutes.
“I let the last reserves out, and that was a good thing,” said final swimmer Gigler in a first reaction. He held off the fourth-placed Brits by 0.32s. “It was pretty tough,” noted Bucher. “But the shouting from the stands motivated.” Reitshammer spoke of a “great feeling, even if everything is hurting at the moment.” And Bayer just said: “Madness!” He had missed bronze in the 50m and 100m breaststroke by just 0.08 and 0.04s respectively, Bucher had scraped past bronze in the 100m dolphin by 0.05s and was also fifth in the 50m dolphin.
For Bayer, Bucher and Gigler it is the first medal in the general class. Reitshammer won bronze in the 100m individual medley in Kazan last November. This time the quartet didn’t get off to the best possible start. They were 0.48 seconds faster in this line-up when they finished seventh in the World Championship final in Budapest in June. Reitshammer, who is usually more active in the prone position, was 0.30 seconds slower than in the final in Hungary, Bayer 0.19 seconds and Bucher 0.07 faster, Gigler 0.44 slower.
Italy took gold in 3:28.46, silver went to France (3:32.50). The Germans finished seventh in 3:35.65 minutes. The only OSV relay European Championship medal before that was in Eindhoven in 2008 with bronze over 4 x 200 m crawl by Dominik Koll, Markus Rogan, David Brandl and Dinko Jukic. For Austria it is the second swimming medal in these title fights after Auböck had won bronze in the 200 m freestyle. In addition, there are two silver and two bronze medals from the Alexandri triplets. Only in Eindhoven 14 years ago there were more OSV medals with eight.
Aubock missed his second medal in Rome by 1.23 seconds. Gold went to the German Lukas Märtens (3:42.50) ahead of Antonio Djakovic (SUI/3:43.93) and his compatriot Henning Mühlleitner (3:44.53). Auböck had already finished fourth over this distance in 2016 and 2018.
Auböck missed his OSV record of 3:43.58 minutes, set at the World Championships in Budapest last June. As he revealed immediately after the race, he lost valuable training time in the summer between the World Cup and the European Championship due to a corona disease. Under these circumstances, the bronze win as well as the 400-time is to be rated highly.
“It was okay,” was Auböck’s first reaction. “I think it just wasn’t there anymore, I gave it my all and I’m tired now too. For today it was the best I could do. I was at my limit.” The 17-year-old Romanian David Popovici, double world and European champion over 100 and 200 m crawl and new 100 m world record holder had qualified fourth for the final, but then withdrew his participation. In the morning, Lena Opatril finished 16th over 400 m crawl in 4:17.98 minutes or was eliminated.
In the medal table, Italy confidently prevailed with 13 gold and silver medals and nine in bronze. Hungary (5/7/3) and Great Britain (4/5/6) follow. Austria brought in the two bronzes in 18th place. The Italians didn’t give up in the final session either. Apart from the men’s relay, they also triumphed in the men’s 100 m backstroke through Thomas Ceccon in 52.21 seconds. Simon Quadarella, on the other hand, missed the victory in the 400 m freestyle by 0.64 seconds and thus the triple triple over 400/800 /1,500 m, as she did twice last time.
The spoilsport was the German Isabel Gose (4:04.13 min.), she provided a German 400m double. The Lithuanian Ruta Meilutyte won the breaststroke in 29.59 seconds, the Bosnian Lana Pudar won the 200 m dolphin in 2:06.81 minutes. Sarah Sjöström extended her European Championship record to 28 medals with her victory in the Swedish medley relay (3:55.25 min.). The Hungarian Hubert Kos won the men’s 200 m individual medley in 1:57.72 minutes and the Brit Benjamin Proud won the freestyle sprint in 21.58 seconds.
Source: Nachrichten
