Two hundredths of a second made the difference in favor of Martin Espernberger. The 20-year-old from Upper Austria, who is expected to be the biggest red-white-red hope in the swimming pool, qualified as eighth and last for the final on Wednesday evening in the 200 meters butterfly.
With a personal best time of 1:54.62 minutes, the world championship bronze medalist has already crowned his debut at the Olympic Games. “I was feeling the excitement before the semifinals in this atmosphere,” he said afterwards. As in the qualifying round, he kept his nerves in the fast race and relied on his skills and endurance in the finish.
Also in the morning during the qualifying rounds, Espernberger had lost a few meters right from the first strokes but was able to count on his strong finish. After 1:55.19 minutes, he hit the wall, finishing just three hundredths of a second behind his time from Doha, which had earned him the bronze medal at the World Championships.
In an exclusive circle
With his participation in the final, he has joined an elite group in Austrian swimming. Martin Espernberger, who has been living and training in the USA since his teenage years, is only the fourth swimmer from Austria in the modern era to reach an Olympic final. Prior to him, Markus Rogan (two silvers in 2004 in Athens), Dinko Jukic, and Felix Auböck had achieved the same.
In the mixed zone, Espernberger appeared very relaxed: “The initial deficit didn’t worry me, after all, that was the world record holder.” As fifth, he qualified confidently for the round of the top 16, finishing even ahead of superstar Léon Marchand. “But that means nothing; he probably swam very relaxed.”
That was true. The Frenchman qualified for the final as second.