Olympic bronze medalist Boglárka Kapás: Unbroken success
According to offical page of FINA-Budapest2017, for the 23-year-old, Hungarian swimming star 2016 was the best year in her career. She won the bronze medal at the Rio Olympic Games and before this she won four gold medals at the European Championships. Her goal for the World Championships in Budapest is to get closer to the unbeatable, American Katie Ledecky and exceed her last year’s performance in Kazan, where she reached the third place. Ideally three silver medals are the realistic expectation for her.
Fort the young star, Hungary’s first youth Olympic champion (Singapore, 2010) the number five the lucky number, since she has started swimming lessons at the age of five, she woke up at five o’clock for many years and her role model is Krisztina Egerszegi, the five-time Olympic champion.
‘She is my role model, since I have started swimming. We have a videotape about her, I watched it so many times the tape broke. I don’t know when the world will see a talented swimmer as her again. It is already an honor, that people mention us together.’ – said Boglárka Kapás, who is one of the favourite swimmer of the Hungarian fans, thanks to her outstanding performances and charming personality.
She was just 15 and the youngest member of Team Hungary at the 2008 Olympic Games in Bejing.
Four years later she won her first gold medal in 800-meter freestyle at the European Championships in her hometown, in Debrecen and clinched the sixth place at the Olympic Games in London. Three years later she improved 15 seconds compared to her national record over 1500m in Kazan and she reached the third place with this time. She won the bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Rio as well, over 800 meters and she reached the fourth place in the 400m freestyle final. Before the Olympics, she won no less than four gold medals at the European Championships held in London.
In Budapest, she is planning to race in the 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle events at the FINA Aquatics World Championships in July, and she could have decisive role in the 4×200 freestyle relay as well. She has put great deal of thoughts to tune in for these World Championships, focusing on the time results and the ranks with realistic, reachable goals.
‘I would like to get closer to Katie Ledeczky’s time results, I have to get faster with 12 seconds. It means yearly 3 seconds if we think in a four-year plan, Katie is unreachable at the moment. My goal is an 8:13.00 time at the 800m freestyle. It would be a reasonable goal to reach Katie at the Tokyo Olympic Games but I am, we are still on the way to get in shape for the next Games. Winning three silver medals, that’s my plan to achieve in Budapest at the next World Championships and if we bring up the relay, there anything could happen.’ – said Boglárka Kapás about her chances.
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Her coach, Balázs Virth shares her view on her plans in 2017 to approach the time results of the golden medals. ‘She will start with the 400m freestyle then the 1500m and 800m freestyle events. She starts the World Championships with the shortest distance event which means she will have to have speed and stamina. We are planning to achieve personal best results in all three races.’
The 17th FINA World Championships is approaching rapidly, it will have an immersive value and extra motivation for the Hungarian swimmers, like Boglárka Kapás to compete against all the other swimmers from all around the world in front of home crowds.
She is, currently student of the Eötvös Lóránd University at the Faculty of Psychology, and social responsibility is really important to her. In this spirit, she was happy to accept to be a honorary volunteer of the 17th FINA World Championships.
Boglárka Kapás
Clubs: BVSC (1999-2016), Újpesti TE (2016-)
Coaches: Balázs Virth, Ferenc Kovácshegyi
Best results: Olympic bronze (800m freestyle), World Championships bronze (1500m freestyle), 5 times winner of the European Championship golden medal (400m, 800m, 1500m, 4x200m freestyle relay)
Main Events: 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle and 4x200m freestyle relay
Source: Press release – fina-budapest2017.com