swimming does not forgive. One day you can be the king of the pool and the next tournament you can be disgraced. A discipline that takes athletes to the limit, both physically and mentally, it can keep you from glory because of a few bad strokes, because you are not at your best at the right time, in this case the Fukuoka World Cup. David Popovici knows this well, a rising star in the previous World Cup event, where he was champion of the 100 and 200 m freestyle, a milestone that no one had achieved since 1973. At the Marine Messe complex, however, he has not been able to defend those two golds despite being a favorite, without even a silver or a bronze of consolation. The Romanian, fourth on Tuesday in the 200m freestyle, was sixth on Thursday in the 100m, half a length behind the medals of Frenchman Grousset, American Alexy and Australian Kyle Chalmers (47s15), the new speed leader.
Popovici, only 18 years old, suffered the cruelest side of swimming after enjoying very soon, in his first major tournament, the honeys of success, something that is now being savored by Léon Marchand, undoubtedly the great protagonist in Japan. With three days to go before the conclusion of the championship, no swimmer has accumulated three gold medals, the last one won this Thursday in the 200-meter styles with a European record.
In the same way as in the 200-meter butterfly and the 400-meter styles, where he smashed the last world record held by Michael Phelps, the man from Toulouse won the test with solvency (1m54s82). He came third at the end of the first 50-meter butterfly, climbed to second in the backstroke and swam smoothly to the top of the podium in the breaststroke and the final front crawl, now more than a second ahead of the British. Duncan Scott and Tom Dean.
A long way from the Frenchman, in seventh position, finished Hugo González, the first Spaniard in a World Cup swimming final since 2019. The man from Palma, who dreamed of Spain’s first medal since 2017, made up for himself minutes later by in the final of the 200 meter backstroke, his specialty.
Marchand has become the new king of swimming in a World Cup where the Australian delegation is giving a recital, first in the medal table of the online events with nine golds, three of them added this Thursday. The Oceanics are leaving the United States team, which started as the great ogre of the tournament, in the background.
In addition to Chalmers’ world title, Kaylee McKeown climbed to the top rung of the box for the second time in the 50m backstroke (27s08). She, the Aussie, surpassed by only three hundredths the American Regan Smith, from whom she had already snatched glory in the 100 meters of the specialty.
The icing on the day for Australia came in the women’s 4×200 freestyle, where they took gold, again ahead of the Americans, with the world record (7m37s50), culminated in the last relay by record holder Ariarne Titmus. Summer McIntosh took her first gold in the other final of the day (2m04s06), the 200m butterfly. Like Marchand, the 16-year-old Canadian burst into the World Cup in Budapest with two golds, and in Fukuoka she remains in the Olympus of swimming. Popovici, on the other hand, has not been able to write that same script
