<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The town of Otopeni, located north of
\nBucharest, is these days the capital city of European swimming. Europe’s best
\njunior swimmers fight for the Championships medals, in a competition Romania
\nplays host to, as an absolute first. The competition is hosted by a brand-new
\nsports compound, with an Olympic swimming pool, another one for diving and four
\nother swimming pools for recovery and warming up. The overall costs for the new
\ncompound stood at 30 million euro. Hosting its first ever top-flight sports
\ncompetition, the Otopeni Olympic Compound has a 2, 800 seating capacity.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The new star of Romanian swimming, David Popovici,
\nwas undoubtedly the top performer of the first competition days. We recall that
\nin June this year in Budapest, David won the 100m and 200m world titles. In the
\nfirst three days of the competition in Otiopneo, David stepped onto a step of
\nthe podium three times. On Tuesday, David Popovici won the 4X100m freestyle
\nevent (the 100m relay event). Other members of Romania’s relay team were Vlad Stancu,
\n\u015etefan Cozma and Patrick Sebastian Dinu. Second came Great Britain, while
\n3rd-placed was the team of Italy. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, David
\nPopovici won the 200m freestyle event. David thus defended the title he won
\nlast year at the European Junior Championships in Rome. Also stepping onto a step
\nof the podium was Italy’s Roberto Galossi and Jacob
\nWhittle of Great Britain. David Popovici is also a world record holder in the
\njuniors’ version of the 200m freestyle event. On June 20, at the World Seniors’
\nchampionships in Budapest, David clocked 1 minute, 34 seconds and 21 hundredths
\nof a second. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Also on Wednesday, at the mixed 4x100m
\nrelay event, Romania came in second. Although they qualified for the sixth best
\ntiming, the Romanians succeeded a well above-par race. Romania dominated the
\nfirst three legs of the relay race, but for the last hundred meters Hungary
\ntook the lead and maintained it, winning the relay. Stepping onto a step of the
\npodium were David Popovici, Patrick Dinu, Bianca Costea and Rebecca Diaconescu.
\nThe competition is ongoing until this coming Sunday. <\/p>\n
(EN)<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Swimming<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":122361,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40940],"tags":[31942,41587,33799,42169,42170],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-122724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","tag-championships","tag-freestyle","tag-record","tag-relay","tag-timing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n