Lithuania Crushes 4×200 Free National Record at Euro Junior Championships

2022 European Junior Championships

• Tuesday, July 5th – Sunday, July 10th
• Otopeni Olympic Swimming Complex, Bucharest, Romania
• LCM (50m)
• Start Times
  • Prelims: 10 a.m. local / 3 a.m. ET
  • Finals: 5 p.m. local / 10 a.m. ET
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• Live Stream
• Day 3 Finals Live Recap

Lithuania’s team of Sylvia Statkevicius, Marija Romanovskaja, Patricija Geriksonaite, and Smilte Plytnykaite crushed the girls’ Lithuanian 4×200 free relay national record by 8 seconds at the 2022 European Junior Championships. They touched the wall with a time of 8:19.38 to place 5th.

The previous record was set at the 2021 European Junior Championships where their team placed 8th. 15-year-olds Statkevicius, Romanovskaja, and Plytnykaite were also on that relay in 2021. 14-year-old Geriksonaite is the newest addition to the relay and the youngest member of the team.

Today, Statkevicius led off the relay in 2:03.54, the 5th fastest lead-off split in the field. This beat their 2021 lead-off split by nearly one second. The biggest difference between Lithuania’s 2021 and 2022 relay legs was Plytnykaite’s anchor split of 2:04.12 which took more than 4 seconds off their team’s anchor split (swam by Statkevicius) in 2021.

Statkevicius’ 200 freestyle has improved significantly since 2021 when her season-best time was 2:06.13. Today, she came within half a second of her lifetime best 200 free time from March, a 2:03.00. She is coming off an eventful spring season where she broke both the 800 free and 1500 free Lithuanian national records in March and April, respectively.

Split Comparison

Originally reported by YanYan Li:

GIRLS’ 4×200 FREESTYLE RELAY — FINAL

• World Record: China — 7:40.33 (2021)
• European Record: Great Britain — 7:45.51 (2009)
• World Junior Record: Canada — 7:51.47 (2017)
• European Junior Record: Russia — 7:57.33 (2017)
• European Junior Championship Record: Hungary — 7:58.99 (2017)
• 2021 European Junior Champion: Hungary — 8:00.95

Podium:

1. Hungary — 7:49.04
2. Italy — 8:08.93
3. Great Britain — 8:13.42

Hungary had control over this race from the very beginning, with their lead widening more and more after each leg. Lilla Abraham got things started with a 1:59.42 leadoff, and she had the only sub-two minute flat start leg. Dora Molnar and Lili Gyurinovics split 2:00.55 and 2:01.78 respectively, before 200 free champion Nikoletta Padar anchored with a massive split of 1:57.29—faster than what she went on this relay at World Championships. Not a single other swimmer in the field split faster than two minutes.

These four girls ended up combining for a time of 7:59.04, which won by 9.89 seconds and is just 0.05 seconds off of the European Junior Championships record set by Hungary in 2017.

Hungary also won the mixed 4×100 free relay, which Padar and Molnar were on, earlier in this meet.