2024-08-02 12:37:43
After in Tokyo he recorded a historic Olympic final for Bulgaria in swimming – the first after 33 years, in Paris Yosif Miladinov remained 15 hundredths and 1 place away from entering the semifinals of the 100 m butterfly, gave the 17th time, and the first 16 continued to the big goal. The 21-year-old from Plovdiv spoke after the series in the Olympic pool at Paris La Defense Arena.
– How do you rate your swimming?
– I gave everything. And in the end it just wasn’t enough for me. Otherwise, I think I swam pretty well. For a morning swim I think my time was good. I was moving great for the morning, but I just didn’t have enough time to continue. I felt great myself. If I had qualified for the semi-final, I am sure that in the evening swim I would have given much more of myself and swum better. But the competition is quite big and I just fell short, which is quite a shame. But that’s life, I think it’s meant to be, and maybe it’s not my time at these Olympics, but at the next one.
– How was your training?
– They were great, I lost a lot of things. Especially in the last few months. I trained constantly, seriously, concentrated, I was motivated, but here it is, this is how it had to happen. I have nothing to say. Life is like that. One has to keep fighting.
– What did you really come to Paris for? Surely your goal was not just to enter the semi-finals…
– I was hoping to repeat my achievement from Tokyo – final. To enter the final and perform better than Tokyo. But as you can see, 7 people with a time under 51 seconds qualified for the semi-final in Paris, and there were only one or two in Tokyo. So competition, as we can see, is quite big, but this is no excuse. I don’t want to make any excuses about it at all, I just want to say that it didn’t reach me a bit.
– Does it hurt to stay 15 hundredths and one place away from the first goal, to be the first reserve for the semi-final?
– It’s a shame. I am very disappointed.
– Especially for the series, what time did you think you would be good enough to swim?
Around 51.30 – 51.60. More or less there. But again, as a morning swim I think the swim itself worked for me, maybe I just wasn’t more active. But that’s the sport. I have to accept it and move on.
– Where is this going next?
– I have a break coming up. I did quite a long season, I started a training process from November-December. So far. I’ll probably take a break until the end of August. And then I’ll think about it. I haven’t talked to coaches yet, to the national team. I still don’t know what the preparation will be like, what the future competitions will be like. But it certainly won’t continue like this, staying out of the semi-finals and finalists. I think this should motivate me going forward to show the real Joseph.
– You barely had time to think about Los Angeles, but now you’re probably going to start looking there?
– Yes. Los Angeles will be one of my main goals.
– Did you have time besides concentration, preparation, to take a look at what else is happening in the pool, because some new legends in swimming were born here?
– Absolutely. There were some great swims. We saw an amazing record in the 100 meter crawl, a world record. I think the only discipline that was not okay according to the rankings and times was the 100m breaststroke. With a world record of 56 seconds, first place here was 59. Otherwise, I think everyone else is doing great. Leo Marchand was also great – 200 breaststroke, 200 breaststroke back to back, albeit with an hour’s rest. Made two very strong swims.