2021 LEN EUROPEAN SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Tuesday, November 2nd – Sunday, November 7th
- Aquatics Palace, Kazan Russia
- SCM (25m)
- Prelim recap
- Results
Italian distance ace Gregorio Paltrinieri took down the official European record in the men’s short course 800-meter freestyle on Sunday at the European championships.
Paltrinieri went 7:27.94 to win the event, breaking former French star Yannick Agnel‘s previous official European record of 7:29.17, which he threw down at the 2012 French National Championships. However, Paltrinieri’s time was still well off of Ukrainian Mykhailo Romanchuk‘s 7:25.73 from an International Swimming League test event in 2020, which has gone unratified. In that same race, Norway’s Henrik Christiansen was also under the record at 7:25.78.
Romanchuk and Christiansen were just over two seconds off of Grant Hackett‘s 7:23.42 world record, which has gone untouched for a whopping 13-plus years — since the Victoria Championships in July 2008, making it the oldest remaining world record in the sport.
Sunday’s swim also obliterated the meet record of 7:38.35, previously owned by Florian Wellbrock. Paltrinieri and Wellbrock essentially stroke-for-stroke for the entire race, with the former ultimately avenging his loss in the 1500 by coming out on top by just .05.
Paltrinieri split 25.58/27.48/27.99/28.34/28.29/28.46/28.63/28.49/28.51/28.48/28.27/28.54/28.49/28.46/27.81/26.12. Throughout the race, the largest lead that either swimmer held was less than a quarter second, which came at the 550 mark with Paltinieri leading Wellbrock 5:08.52 to 5:08.74. Germany’s Sven Schwarz, who was third in the 1500 earlier in the meet, also took the bronze in the 800 in 7:33.85.
Paltrinieri is also the European record holder in the short course 1500 as well as the long course 800 and 1500.
they need to swim this event more! Maybe even the same way as they did at the ISL test event, maybe that is faster
Think the focus was the Gold medal more than a record