David Popovici scoops new world title
The greatest swimmer in Romanian history has showed his worth at the World Championships in Singapore
Florin Orban, 30.07.2025, 14:00
At the World Swimming Championships underway in Singapore, representing Romania are six athletes, four of whom in diving and two in swimming. When leaving for Asia, the greatest hopes were pinned on David Popovici, dubbed with good chances of scopping a new world title. On Tuesday, the young Romanian swimmer lived up to the expectations and won the gold medal in the 200-meter freestyle event. Previously, he won the preliminaries with the best time. In the semifinals, he saved his strength and qualified for the final with the fourth-best time. However, the final came, and Popovici once again proved his mettle. He had a perfect race from a tactical point of view. He started well, but not exactly strong. He really pulled hard on the last length of the pool, when he decisively prevailed over his main opponent, American Luke Hobson. He finished the race in one minute, 43 seconds and 53 hundredths, 29 hundredths ahead of Hobson, who came in second. The young Japanese Tatsuya Murasa finished in third place, over a second behind Popovici. The Romanian’s time was a season best for the 200-meter race, 11 hundredths of a second better than the previous season record, which David recorded in June at the European Youth Championships in Samorin, Slovakia.
Shy of 21, David Popovici is, performance-wise, the best swimmer in Romanian history. He is a multiple world champion and at one point held the world record for the 100-meter freestyle event. He was born in Bucharest, on September 15, 2004. He stood out in junior competitions in 2021 when, at the European Championships in Rome, he won the 200m, 100m and 50m freestyle races, in the last event also setting a junior world record. He managed to qualify to the Tokyo Olympic Games, where he ranked fourth in the 200 meters freestyle, two hundredths of a second off the podium. At senior level, he won his first major title in November 2021, when, in Kazan, Russia, he became European champion in the 200 meter freestyle event. In 2022, he came in first at the Senior World Championships in June, in Budapest. The two titles he won in the Hungarian capital, in the 100m and 200m freestyle, marked a premiere for Romanian sports. Then, at the European Championships in Rome in August, he finished the 100-meter race in 46.86 seconds, setting a new world record. At the Paris Olympics, David Popovici was the athlete to whom the greatest expectations of Romanian fans were directed. And the Romanian did not disappoint. He became the new Olympic champion in the 200-meter freestyle and took the bronze medal in the 100-meter freestyle event. (VP)
