2021 FINA WORLD CUP STOP #2 – BUDAPEST
- Thursday, October 7th – Saturday, October 9th
- Duna Arena, Budapest, Hungary
- SCM (25m)
- SwimSwam Preview
- Day 1 Prelims Recap/Day 1 Finals Recap
- Day 2 Prelims Recap
- Results
Kristof Milak delighted the home fans with his first victory of the meet on Day 2 of the FINA World Cup stop in Budapest on Friday, claiming the men’s 50 backstroke title and setting a new Hungarian Record in the process.
Milak, 21, had first broken the record in the morning preliminaries, clocking 23.34 to erase the previous mark of 23.39 set by Richard Bohus in 2019.
In the final, Milak turned things up a notch by throwing down a time of 23.08, knocking a further .26 off the record while winning the race by a similar margin.
Australian Zac Incerti was the runner-up in 23.36, while another Hungarian, Szebasztian Szabo, took third in 23.47.
Milak’s prelim swim marked his first best time in the event in three years, having set his previous PB of 23.49 at the 2018 Hungarian SC Championships.
Milak is primarily known for his butterfly prowess, as the current Olympic champion, world champion and world record holder in the men’s 200 butterfly (LCM), plus the second-fastest man ever and Olympic silver medalist in the 100 fly.
He’s also an elite freestyler, but clearly has a high-end backstroking ability as well, with his world-class underwater dolphin kick certainly playing a role in the short course pool.
While Milak narrowly misses reaching the top 25 all-time performers with his swim, he does move into 16th all-time among Europeans, and also ranks fifth in the world this season.
On Day 1 of the meet, Milak placed second in the 100 butterfly (49.92) and fifth in the 50 freestyle (21.44), and is also slated to race the 100 free final later on Friday. On Saturday, Milak is entered to race the 50 fly and 200 free.
If feels like every mid distance swimmer just randomly excels in the 50 backstroke. Milak, Incerti, Le Clos, Hurley, Ress was originally a mid d freestyler
Incerti is a backstrokah
He was only doing freestyle at the Olympics.
definitely not a middle distance swimmer but flo’s 50 back scm wr is nasty
Kristof used to start swimming as a backstroker. It was Attila who converted him to a flyer… But yeah I was amazed by his win. He doesn’t stop breaking his PBs since he picked up the race again after Tokyo and his time in 100fly overwhelmed me. Clearly see he’s very motivated by shorter distance events now.
In his past interview he said he could potentially beat Dressel in the 100 fly. I’ll bet that loss in Tokyo stung and he’s been doing more raw speed work.
Damn I wanted to say his time in SC 100free… not 100fly. Didn’t really expect him to go under 47 for freestyle.
Where is the man that was trying to tell me his underwaters were not elite on the 200 free preview article?
Exactly. Remember that guy from the comments critizing his “bad” underwater and the other one blaming his freestyle technique….
I said I don’t love his freestyle technique (his breath is a little awkward and he breathes to both sides) but I thought his underwater speed would make up for it.
Ha it was you. Yeah I know he has many weird ways to do things, his start is weird, his breathing pattern, but as long as he’s got the speed, who knows