Bravo Apostolos!
Apostolos Christou, the European champion and one of the best swimmers in the world, will compete for the first time in his career in the 100m backstroke final at the Olympic Games in Paris tomorrow, Monday, July 29, at 22:19 (ERT).
He swam in the second semifinal heat, turning second at 50m with a time of 25.42 and finished also second with a time of 52.77. With the 6th best performance, he will experience the biggest moment of his career… He will be one of the medal contenders, the first medal that our country will have achieved in the pool. Apostolos will live his dream, will enjoy the race as he stated… And who knows what the day will bring…
Unlucky was Vangelis Makrygiannis: he had a very good performance with a time of 52.97, very close to his personal record (52.83), finishing sixth in the first heat and taking the 9th position overall, missing out on the final by just two hundredths of a second! The Spaniard Ugi Gonzalez de Oliveira passed with 52.95!
In Christou’s heat, the Chinese swimmer Su had an incredible start and finished first with 52.02, the best time overall. The Italian world record holder Thomas Ceccon, who won the first heat with 52.58, was the second-best to qualify, followed by the Frenchman Yoann Ndoye-Brouard and the South African Pieter Coetze (who set an African record) with 52.63. Also finalists were the American Ryan Murphy, winner in Rio and third in Tokyo, who qualified fifth with 52.72, Christou with 52.77, the Brit Oliver Morgan with 52.85, and Gonzalez who made us… very sad with his 52.95. However, everyone will start from scratch in the final…
The world champion this year in Doha, Hunter Armstrong (53.11), as well as the Hungarian Hubert Kós (52.98), who had the best time in the morning heats, did not qualify.
See HERE for the results.
Press Office KOE: Theodoros Davelos