There was just a single event on the first day of the 2014 Spanish National Championships, but that one swim was a great back-and-forth battle in Barcelona.
Marc Sanchez Torrens, the country’s reigning distance king, swam to a 15:21.27 in the men’s 1500 meter freestyle, just beating-out Antonio Arroyo Perez in 15:21.48. There were no fewer than 6 lead changes, based on 50 meter splits, in this race, and that even doesn’t tell the full story of this race. One swimmer would make a little charge, and build a small lead, before the other would fight back.
Both swims came up just a touch shy (Torrens by under a tenth) of the Championship Record.
That’s an encouraging swim for Sanchez, who historically is a very good taper swimmer. He’s generally been a like-clockwork 10 second drop over the last month of his long course season. He’s probably not going to medal at the European Championships, but he’s trending in the right direction to maybe break the sub-15 mark by the time the 2016 Olympic Games roll around, at which point he’ll still be just 24-years old.
Third place in the race went to visiting Danish swimmer Anton Ipsen in 15:23.00.
The meet will really start to heat up on Thursday with the likes of Mireia Belmonte in the 200 fly, and the Ortiz brothers (Miguel and Bruno) plus Rafael Munoz and Konrad Czerniak in the 50 free.