Basically, it was Austria’s most successful title fight with Olympic long-track competitions to date. Because since the World Cup premiere in 1973 there had never been gold for the OSV. The synchronized swimmers Anna-Maria and Eirini-Marina Alexandri were responsible for this coup. In addition, her triplet sister Vasiliki won two solo silvers.
In pool swimming, reaching three World Cup finals was a nice success for a smaller swimming country like Austria, but the goals are always based on one’s own previous successes. And only 13 months earlier at the World Championships in Budapest, with five finals and a number of national record times, they were clearly greater.
“We will do better in Doha”
“I also speculated with medals (in pool swimming, note),” said OSV sports director Bär in the APA interview. “But I don’t want to speak of a disappointment. We have been spoiled by the results of the last few years with finals and numerous records.” The performance will now be analyzed in detail. “We’ll do better in Doha,” Bär said, looking ahead to the World Cup in February.
With the long-time OSV top performer Felix Auböck, it is noticeable that he achieved his greatest World Cup successes in 2017 and 2022 in Budapest. As in 2019 in Gwangju in South Korea, it was not enough to hope for in Japan. Two eighth places are fewer than the crawl specialist had expected – this time it should be a medal. But there is already an analytical approach here. “We have a bit of a problem with Felix in competitions in Southeast Asia,” Bär revealed. “It doesn’t work with the time adjustment.” Which in turn gives hope for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
Clearly missed the hoped-for medal
Simon Bucher, on the other hand, felt comfortable in Japan simply because of his relatives living there. She had bought tickets for the Friday final session, but the semifinals over 100 m dolphin went on without the Tyrolean. Surprisingly, Bucher was eliminated in the preliminary heat on his parade distance. He would have seen himself among the favorites and speculated with a medal, especially after seventh place in the 50 m dolphin.
GEPA/Philipp Brem Surprisingly, Simon Bucher was eliminated in the preliminary run on his parade distance over 100 m Delfin
Big names like Caeleb Dressel, Kristof Milak and Chad le Clos were missing. It was clear for the sixth place in the 2022 World Cup where to go. “He’s intelligent enough and saw who was there and who wasn’t,” Baer said. “Based on that, he created a certain pressure of expectations. The looseness that he had over 50 was then missing.” Also on Sunday in the medley relay, Bucher was even slower in the dolphin section than in the individual race, taking into account the “flying” start. Bear: “Once the worm is inside…”
Bucher ensures the only OSV record
Bucher’s top time at the beginning over 50 m Delfin remained the only OSV record, and there were no personal bests in the OSV camp either. The relays over 4 x 200 m freestyle for women and 4 x 100 m individual medley for men did not achieve top marks either, although the coordination had been fine-tuned in Linz and in the World Cup precamp in Kochi. Bär was nevertheless convinced of the performance potential of the OSV teams, as 16th and 11th they are currently qualifying for the Olympics. “But we’ll have to be quicker in Doha,” he recognized.
