David Popovici has seized the men’s 200 freestyle title, clocking a 1:43.21 record, becoming the first-ever Romanian man to win a World Championships title on Monday in Budapest.
The 17-year-old is is now the 4th-fastest man in history behind Paul Biederman, Michael Phelps and Yannick Agnel and has swum the 5th-fastest time in history, Swim Swam reported.
With this swim, Popovici is one of only five swimmers in history to crack the 1:44 barrier and is now the youngest man to do so.
The former youngest man to pull off the sub-1:44 feat was Danila Tzotov who did it at age 17 at the 2009 World Championships.
Russian Izotov did it when he was 17 years, 9 months, and 26 days old, while Popovici is currently 17 years, 9 months, and 5 days old, making him 21 days younger than Izotov.
In addition to being the youngest man to swim a 1:43, Popovici is now the youngest World Champion in the men’s 200 freestyle and one of the youngest male world champions in swimming history. His performance smashed his own previous record of 1:44.40 from the semi-finals round of this meet.
All-Time 200 Freestyle Performers
- Paul Biedermann (GER) – 1:42.00 (2009)
- Michael Phelps (USA) – 1:42.96 (2008)
- Yannick Agnel (FRA) – 1:43.14 (2012)
- David Popovici (ROU) – 1:43.21 (2022)
- Danila Izotov (RUS) – 1:43.90
The performance makes Popovici the second-fastest 200 freestyler in a textile suit as both of Biedermann’s swims and Phelps’ swim occurred in the super-suit era.
Prior to this, U.S. swimmer Tim Shaw was the youngest man to top the podium in this event at a World Championships. He won this event in 1975 at the Cali World Championships. At that meet Shaw was just over 18 years of age, making Popovici the only 17-year-old to win the event at this meet.
The only other Romanian male swimmer to have ever landed on the podium at this meet is Dragos Coman who earned bronze in the 400 freestyle at the 2003 Championships in Barcelona.
