The young Romanian prodigy David Popovici broke the world record for the 100m swim in the final of the European Championships! At 17, the double world champion erased the mark of the Brazilian Cesar Cielo, who had held since 2009, by winning in 46”86, or 5 hundredths better. He beat Hungarian Kristof Milak (47”47) and Italian Alessandro Miressi (47”63).
Popovici, crowned at the Budapest Worlds in the 100 and 200m freestyle, has therefore erased the world record achieved in combination – a bygone era – by Cielo thirteen years ago.
Friday in the semi-final, in a time of 46”98, the native of Bucharest became the 4th man only to go under 47 seconds behind Cielo, the Frenchman Alain Bernard (46”94) and the American Caeleb Dressel (46”98). Note that Bernard’s brand had not been officially approved due to an invalid combination.
Revealed at the European Junior Championships last summer, already in Rome, Popovici confirmed a few weeks later at the Tokyo Olympics. When he was only 16, he failed 2 hundredths of a bronze in the 200m freestyle final before taking 7th place in the 100m freestyle final.
His progress has not stopped
In Budapest, last June, he became the first man to achieve the double of the 100-200m freestyle in the World Championships for almost fifty years. His performance on Saturday in the Olympic pool at the Foro Italico in Rome finally put him at the top of world men’s swimming.
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