Something never done before in Greek swimming and difficult to find at world level, Greek swimmers achieved it in the 50m freestyle and 100m backstroke at the European Championships in Belgrade.
Golomeev and Bilas did “1-2” (first-second) in the 50m freestyle and in the following race Apostolos Christou and Vangelis Makrygiannis did exactly the same in the 100m. backstroke, while two days earlier the same pair had done “1-3” in the 50m backstroke!
Christou finished with an impressive 52.23, his second best performance after the 52.09 he set at the 2022 Worlds in Budapest.
A performance that wins a gold medal at the Olympic Games, as he said after the race. The Greek champion won the third gold of his career and the first in this event, where he has won one silver and three bronzes so far.
Makrygiannis followed him on the podium breaking his individual record with 52.83, also a great time that qualifies for the Olympic final.