Gold In 3:54 Gets Gose Past Belmonte's 12-Year-Old Record But Magdeburg Mate Märtens Is Pipped By Britain's McMillan
The first titles of the European s/c Championships leave Germany's Isabel Gose with a title at every international championship level she's competed at barring the Olympics, and Britain's Jack McMillan with his first big senior title
Isabel Gose is the latest member of the Germany's Magdeburg Might to deliver distance-freestyle championship gold: her 3:54.33 victory in the 400m in the opening final of the European short-course championships in Lublin took down the continental record that had stood to Spanish superstar Mireia Belmonte after 12 years.
Victory for Gose, 23 and coached by Bernd Berkhahn, means that she has now claimed a title at every international championship level open to her, World and European long- and short-course, leaving the Paris 2024 Olympic 1500m free bronze medallist shy of a Games gold to complete the collection.
Gose raced a touch inside Belmonte's 2013 pace throughout the race to build up a lead that left her 2.37sec ahead of her closest rival by the close of business: Italy's Simona Quadarella, one of the top four in 800m free - the race of the World Championships in Singapore back in August - took silver in 3:56.70, the bronze just 0.01sec away, to Britain's Freya Colbert in 3:56.71:
Belmonte, the 2016 Olympic 200m butterfly champion and a Games medallist on medley and distance freestyle, too, was coached by Fred Vergnoux, who helped prepare Summer McIntosh, the Canadian who holds the World s/c and l/c records in the 400m free for the follow-up to three golds and a silver at Paris 2024, four golds and a bronze at Singapore 2025 Worlds.
The men's 400m final looked like it might deliver the 400m double for Magdeburg in celebration of a recent decision to build a new performance centre in the city that is our has been home to the world's most medalled distance group over the past two Olympic cycles.
Gose's training partner and former boyfriend, the reigning Olympic and World 400m champion Lukas Märtens - the man who took down Paul Biedermann's World shiny suits record and Ian Thorpe's textile global standard in April this year - led to half way in Lublin this evening before Ireland's Dan Wiffen, Olympic 800m champion, took the helm to unit Britain's Jack McMillan had his feet on the wall first for the first time at 325m and then refused to give way on his way to the first international senior crown of his career.
Time for British Swimming to update his profile, which still shows he's won no international medals at senior level, when actually, he now has three golds, Olympic, World and European s/c ... your chart to fill in the numbers:
Related to the Wiffen's preparation and the Britain bull run in the 4x200m free:
Craig Lord
McMillan is coached by Ben Higson at the University of Stirling in Scotland and is a training partner of Duncan Scott, a fellow finalist today in the mix for the medals until the closing stages of battle. The man who was head coach at Stirling before Higson is his former training mate in their swimming days, Steve Tigg, now Great Britain head coach.
The winning 3:36.33 pipped Märtens by 0.18sec, the German ace's 3:36.51 out-touching Wiffen, who took bronze ahead of another member of the Magdeburg Might, Johannes Liebmnann, who finish fourth in what the result sheet tells us is a World junior record of 3:37.39.
As the record lists suggest, a faster time was recorded as European junior record last month in a nation absent from the meet in Lublin as a result of its status as aggressor in the war on sovereign Ukraine. Global ratification of that offer had not been given by the time the start lists had been set for Lublin.
The 4x50m freestyle relay finals
The Netherlands women's quartet clocked 1:33.85 for victory:
Italy's men's quartet clocked 1:22.90 for victory:
There are no 4x100 nor 4x200m relays at the championships.
In semi-finals, Noe Ponti, of Switzerland, set a championship record of 21.51 (compared to his World record 21.32) in the 50 butterfly; Dutch title hope Caspar Corbeau clocked 55.77, after a Dutch mark of 55.54 in heats, to leave the way to the 100m breaststroke showdown tomorrow.
Heats in Lublin:
Craig Lord
