Day 2 Heats: The Return Of Sprint Queen Sarah Sjöström; & Arrival Of Nathan Muratory...
Day 2 Heats: European Championships, at the Centre Aquatique Olympique Métropole du Grand Paris: Nathan Muratoy (FRA), 18, World junior record of 1:54.87 200 back; Angharad Evans (GBR) championship record of 1:05.45, 100m breaststroke; David Popovici (ROU) 47.13, 100m freestyle heats
Good day from Paris, the morning after this lot:
Craig Lord
Craig Lord
Craig Lord
Craig Lord
This morning's rolling file, updates at the end of each passing event.
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- RESULTS IN FULL & START LISTS
Highlights Day 2 Heats:
- Nathan Muratory - heard of him? Take a note of his name: born in 2008, the year Michael Phelps claimed eight golds, Ryan Lochte stopped Aaron Peirsol in the 200m back and Peirsol retained the 100m crown as backstroke king at his third Games...
Muratoy, 18, just clocked World and European junior record of 1:54.87 to pip Olympic champion Hubert Kós (HUN) in the heats of the 200m backstroke. What a swim! It means French No 1 Yohann Ndoye-Brouard is out, as the third fastest from his country in morning heats.
Entered in 1:57.31, Muratory cracked the global and continental junior standards that had stood at 1:55.14 to Kliment Kolesnikov since 28 July 2017 at the World Championships in Budapest.
And, 26 years on, here's the Sydney 2000 result when Peirsol - still World record holder in the 200m (shiny 2009, but he won a ton and pioneered in textile, too, of course) was just 17 and racing, like 15-year-old Phelps, aster a debut Olympics:
Lenny Krayzelburg (USA) United States 1:56.76 OR Aaron Peirsol (USA) 1:57.35; Matt Welsh AUS 1:57.59 OC
Take a note of the name: born in 2008, the year Michael Phelps claimed eight golds, Ryan Lochte stopped Aaron Peirsol in the 200m back and Peirsol retained the 100m crown as backstroke king at his third Games... Nathan Muratory.
Muratoy, 18, just clocked World and European junior record of 1:54.87 to pip Olympic champion Hubert Kós (HUN) in the heats of the 200m backstroke. What a swim! It means French No 1 Yohann Ndoye-Brouard is out, as the third fastest from his country in morning heats.
Entered in 1:57.31, Muratory cracked the global and continental junior standards that had stood at 1:55.14 to Kliment Kolesnikov since 28 July 2017 at the World Championships in Budapest.
And, 26 years on, here's the Sydney 2000 result when Peirsol - still World record holder in the 200m (shiny 2009, but he won a ton and pioneered in textile, too, of course) was just 17 and racing, like 15-year-old Phelps, aster a debut Olympics:
- Lenny Krayzelburg (USA) United States 1:56.76 OR Aaron Peirsol (USA) 1:57.35; Matt Welsh AUS 1:57.59 OC
On the eve of the championships, Muratory, won gold in the 200m backstroke and silver in the 100m backstroke at the European Junior Championships in Munich a month ago, met the French media for a brief chat.
The Colomiers swimmer is now based in Canet, near the Font-Romeu CREPS training centre, said:
"I didn't think I'd be able to reach this level so soon. Last year really helped me; I managed to qualify for the European Junior Championships a year ahead of schedule. I went there aiming to gain experience and see what it was all about. I had my sights set on contending for a title or at least a medal. I worked hard all year and succeeded, so it’s truly incredible to be able to do this."
"Gradually, I felt myself improving and understanding things in the water. I tell myself I'm ready. I think that when I walk out to the pool - if there's some noise - it might give me a bit of a jolt, but I'm expecting that and won't be afraid of it happening."
Jolt given. Next stop, Euro senior semis...
More below on the Muratory drama and what it meant for French No 1...
- Sarah Sjöström's return to championship waters for Sweden
- Angharad Evans (GBR) on a championship record of 1:05.45 in the 100m breaststroke
- David Popovici (ROU) on 47.13 in the 100m freestyle heats
- Mixed 4x100 medley: Italy DQ puts one of the title contenders out of action... the start list for the final:
- Johannes Liebmann 7:41.87 leads the men's 800 free heats, with Zalan Sarkany (HUN), 7:42.34, and Dan Wiffen (IRL), the Olympic champion here in Paris two years ago, on 7:44.86 in the same het 4 of 4 completing the top 3 qualifiers for the final tomorrow.
Women's 50m butterfly
Sarah Sjöström is back in the place she's known so well in international championship waters: on top.
In the first event of Day 2, the Swedish sprint ace and World record holder is fastest through to the semis of the 'fly dash in 25.40, her competitive comeback well underway after time out to become a mum to son Adrian, with dad and husband Johan de Jong Skierus.
No doubting who the swimmer in lane 4 of the last of six heats was, without even bothering to look at the scoreboard or hear her name announced: the flow the fast and furious turnover, the nailed finish, all in place, albeit it just shy of the pace of that astonishing global mark she set 12 years ago in Bǒras:
Sjöström's Last time out in Paris:
Craig Lord
Craig Lord
Life outside the pool, and the journey to "the greater adventure" of my life - motherhood:
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Sarah Sjöström, Sweden's double Olympic freestyle sprint champion of 2024, announced today that she is expecting a child. Winner of the 50 and 100m freestyle titles in Paris last summer, Sjöström was the first Swedish woman to claim gold in the Olympic pool when she took the 10om butterfly crown at the Rio 2016 Games.
She still aims to be at Los Angeles 2028 but the reason why she stated three weeks ago that she won't be at World titles in Singapore this summer, is now clear: the 31-year-old Swede announced on Instagram that she and her husband, Johan de Jong Skierus, are looking forward to the happy news: the birth of their first child in August. She described her news as the start of "life's greatest adventure", which had already included "mentally and physical" difficulties during this first trimester of pregnancy. She added:
"I am more amazed than ever by what women go through. I have always admired the strength of women but now I understand it on a whole new level."
October 2024
The Marriage of Sarah Sjöstrom & Johan de Jong Skierus
Three-time Olympic gold medallist Sarah Sjöstrom married her boyfriend, Johan de Jong Skierus, a Swedish fencer, in Tuscany, Italy, on Sunday September 29.
The wedding came hot on the heels of Sjöstrom's fifth and most successful Olympic Games: she claimed gold in the 100m freestyle and then added the 50m freestyle crown on the past day of action at the Paris La Defense Arena. Those two huge prizes joined her the 100m butterfly victory which at Rio 2016 made Sarah the first Swedish woman to claim Olympic gold in the pool.
EventItalian organised the wedding in beautiful Pienza, which lies between the towns of Montepulciano and Montalcino in the province of Siena and is considered to be the "touchstone of Renaissance urbanism".
Sarah, who turned 31 a couple of weeks after the swimming in Paris ended in August, and Johan, 35, have been partners for 12 years. Johan is a sabre fencer who has competed for the Swedish national team and won nine national championship medals, including one title. Beyond sport, he worked at the Danska Bank, specialising in anti-money laundering.
Congratulations to the sporting couple. 🏊🤺🍾🥂
- Here's where you can watch the video of parts of the ceremony and celebrations posted by Sarah on Instagram
- And... some snaps of the lovely day by the photographer Elsa Linnea Lindberg - see more of her work at her own Instagram page
- And Sarah's Instagram with more snaps and all the details of the designers and others who helped may the couple's happy day spectacularly so
Men's 100m freestyle
It was heat 8 before we saw the first sub-48: Hungarian Kristof Milak's 47.92 edged Italy's Carlos D'Ambrosio, 48.02, the line-up gone without Maxime Grousset, of France. He has the 50 'fly final this evening and his presence at the championships had been in doubt after he fractured his foot. So, another Frenchman taking fewer risks. France confirmed that Grousset withdrew as a precautionary measure to keep his dash hopes alive for this evening and avoid aggravating his healing joint with too much, too soon.
No risks to take for Egor Kornev, it seems: in heat 9 the neutral sprinter clocked 47.97. You might imagine was a touch international race rusty but shown no signs of anything of the kind as he set a championship record in the 50 'fly semis last night. In the 100 free, h's the only sub-47 swimmer so this season.
We almost saw another, in heat 10: 47.13 from Romanian Olympic 200m free champion David Popovici - the fastest through to semis:
The qualifiers:
Women's 100m breaststroke
No-one got inside 1:06.5 until heat 4 of 5, when Italy's Lisa Angiolini clocked 1:06.31. One heat to go, and by the end of it, the sub-1:06.5 club was five deep - only one them inside 1:05.5, and two inside 1:06:
Britain's Angharad Evans, Commonwealth champion for Scotland two weeks ago, took down the championship record in 1:05.45, looking solid, smooth and even sharper than she was in Glasgow. Ireland's Mona McSharry followed her into the wall, on 1:05.97.
Back in 12th was a neutral athlete it is truly hard to describe as neutral given past events: Yuliya Efimova*'s championship record 1:05.53 dated back to Glasgow 2018. She's now 34 and back in the national shoal, though not quite the force she once was: 1:07.38, as second best NABber, Evgenia Chikunova, the world 200m record holder, though in 1:06.89, World champion Anna Elendt, of Germany, on 1:06.74 and also among those comfortably through.
- * - suspended for doping during her career racing for Russia
Men's 200m Backstroke
The biggest upset of the morning unfolded in the last heat the 200 back, when Olympic champion Hubert Kós (HUN) was pipped by French teen Nathan Muratory, who set a World and Junior record of 1:54.87!
And that wasn't the upset, Kós doing merely what he needed to do to get through and unaware of what was going on in lane 7 on the wing.
The upset was all French: in heat 2, Yohann Ndoye-Brouard set the pace at 1:55.91. Solid, after all, he had Mewen Tomas to watch for under the two-per-nation-go-through rule, coming next in heat 3, and young Muratory with a career best over 1:57 - until last month. There's always a risk - especially when 18-year-olds arrive at their senior Euro debut with a spring in their step. In fact, he clocked 1:55.88 in Munich fort that silver in Munich.
Risk taken, Ndoye-Brouard found himself locked out, Tomac through second fastest in 1:55.14, Kós on 1:55.37 as last man under 1:56, then kid the sole sub-1:55er!
Mixed 4x100m medley
More drama followed ... Italy, among title contenders, are out: a takeover too fast. Germany much relieved... 9th, now 8th.
Here are the qualifiers:
... and the DQs:
Men's 800m freestyle
Johannes Liebmann (GER) 7:41.87 leads the men's 800 free heats, with Zalan Sarkany (HUN), 7:42.34, and Dan Wiffen (IRL), the Olympic champion here in Paris two years ago, on 7:44.86 in the same het 4 of 4 completing the top 3 qualifiers for the final tomorrow.
