Hungary topped the medal table of this year’s European Aquatics Championship

VS.hu reports that the 2016 European Aquatics Championship ended on Sunday as the most successful championship for Hungarian swimmers. The last day brought 2 more gold medals, a silver and a bronze, thus, the Hungarian team received all in all 19 medals, of which 10 were gold. Hence, as only the Brits had more medals – 22 of which 7 were gold – Hungary can be seen on the very top of the medal table.

On the last day of the Championship, at women’s 200m butterfly Liliána Szilágyi and Zsuzsa Jakabos could being rooted on. Szilágyi almost won the heat “but Germany’s Franziska Hentke passed her in the last centimetres and won by the tiniest margin possible (0.01 sec)”, writes len.eu. Thus, she was ranked second, while Jakabos became the fourth, 0.23 seconds away from the bronze.

After the competition, Szilágyi told M4 that she went through the toughest 3 months of her life, as she actually wanted to give up swimming. But, luckily, she did not, and, in the end, she “competed for herself, for the first time in her life”, which resulted in winning silver at the Championship. She mentioned how happy she was for her result, and did not bother herself because of that 1 second, for the second place already was a great achievement.

Next up was men’s 400m medley, with Dávid Verrasztó and Gergely Gyurta representing Hungary.  According to vs, Verrasztó could not start off very well, however, he became the first to turn for the butterfly leg, while Gyurta was then the fifth. Verrasztó kept increasing his lead, which brought him victory. Gyurta became fourth, while “Slovakia’s Richárd Nagy – coming from the Hungarian minority living there – earned the silver and Italy’s Federico Turrini claimed the bronze”, according to len.eu.

Verrasztó said that he was in great condition and aims to make it to the final in Rio too. For that reason he swam “stronger” in the morning heat, thus practicing the situation. Also, was he not left alone at the end of the heat, he thought he could have finished by a better time than 4:13:15. Anyway, his goal is to get into the final at the Olympics, in the summer.

The finals continued by women’s 400m freestyle, where Boglárka Kapás greatly defeated the other swimmers and won the heat with a huge personal and country best of 4:03:47. This was her fourth gold in London and, as len.eu put it: she “added the 10^th gold to the nation’s tally, achieving the long-distance hat-trick for the first time at the Europeans by winning the 400m, 800m and 1500m free at the same meet”.

Then, the 2016 European Aquatics Championship in London was finished by men’s 4x100m medley. The Hungarian team consisted of Gábor Balog, Gábor Financsek, László Cseh and Richárd Bohus, who qualified themselves into the final with the third best time. After the first, backstroke leg Financsek could start from the sixth position but ended up eighth.

However, Cseh could change it, at the end of his leg the Hungarians were already second. Bohus swam well, too, and arrived as third. Eventually then, the Brits won the heat and they were followed by the French, and the Hungarians were the third to step on the podium by winning the bronze with a time of 3:34:12.

Krisztián Takács should also be mentioned, as it was the first time in his career that he competed in men’s 50m freestyle at a long-course European Championship. He started off well and ended up as sixth, the winner was the French Florent Manaudou, who is actually the Olympic and World Champion of 50m free.

Photos: MTI, facebook.com/uszoszovetseg

Copy editor: bm

Source: vs.hu, len.eu