Swimming

David Popovici Moves Up World Rankings With 1:45.10 200 Free At Romanian Nationals

April 19, 2024

2024 ROMANIAN NATIONALS

Wednesday, April 17th – Sunday, April 21st
Otopeni, Romania
LCM (50m)
Start List
Results

Day 2 of the 2024 Romanian Nationals saw former world record holder David Popovici dive in to contest the men’s 200m freestyle.

After posting the top time of the morning in 1:47.41 as the sole swimmer of the field under 1:52, 19-year-old Popovici produced a final mark of 1:45.10 to grab the gold this evening.

Popovici split 24.98/26.97(51.95)/26.92/26.24(52.44) to keep things relatively close between his two halves in this controlled outing.

His performance handily defeated the domestic field, with Mihai Gergely snagging silver in 1:51.27 and Robert Andrei Badea bagging bronze in 1:51.86.

Popovici’s 1:45.10 checks in as a season-best, overtaking the 1:46.19 logged at the Luxembourg Euro Meet in January. He bumps himself up in the world rankings to now occupy slot #7.

2023-2024 LCM Men 200 Free

SunwooKOR
HWANG

09/27
1:44.40

2	Matthew RICHARDS	GBR	1:44.69	04/07
3	Duncan SCOTT	GBR	1:44.75	04/07
4	Maximillian GIULIANI	AUS	1:44.79	12/12
5	Danas RAPSYS	LTU	1:44.96	02/12
6	Thomas DEAN	GBR	1:45.09	04/07
7	Lukas MARTENS	GER	1:45.21	02/12
8	Luke HOBSON	USA	1:45.26	02/13
9	James GUY	GBR	1:45.28	04/07
9	Zhanle PAN	CHN	1:45.28	09/27

View Top 51»

Popovici’s lifetime best in this 200m free remains at the massive 1:42.97 he produced en route to gold at the 2022 European Championships. That performance rendered him the 3rd-fastest man in history, sitting only behind Germany’s retired world record holder Paul Biedermann‘s supersuited time of 1:42.00 and retired Olympic champion Michael Phelps (1:42.96) of the United States.

The Romanian added this 2free gold to the 50m free meet title he captured on day 1 here in Otopeni. Yesterday he posted a result of 22.27 to register the 4th-quickest time of his young career. His PB remains at the 22.16 produced for gold at the 2022 European Junior Championships.

The other notable swim on the evening came in the men’s 50m fly where Denis Laurean Popescu fired off a new national record.

He popped a time of 23.54 to slice .20 off of Popovici’s former national standard of 23.74 put on the books at the 2023 edition of this competition.

Entering this meet, Popescu’s lifetime best rested at the 24.13 notched at the 2023 Sette Colli Trophy. That means the 20-year-old beat his previous PB by over half a second en route to grabbing the gold.

SwimSwam: David Popovici Moves Up World Rankings With 1:45.10 200 Free At Romanian Nationals