Kristof Milak Completes Fly Clean Sweep With 23.48 Victory In The Dash At Four Nations Meet

Kristof Milak: Photo Courtesy: Becca Wyan

The 4 Nations Meet drew to a close on Sunday with victories for Kristof Milak and Katinka Hosszu on Margaret Island, Budapest.

Milak made it a clean sweep of the fly races in the one-length dash and Hosszu won the medley double while there were performances of note from Akos Kalmar in the 1500m free as Hubert Kos served further notice of his potential with a commanding 200IM win.

Milak had opened his meet with a shuddering 51.14 in the 100 fly as he matched the pace of Michael Phelps, Laszlo Cseh and Chad Le Clos en-route to Olympic silver at Rio 2016.

He followed that up on Saturday with a 1:55 victory in the 200 fly before seeing out the clean sweep with a 23.48 victory over 50m.

Polish pair Michal Chudy and Kacper Stokowski rounded out the podium in 23.67 and 23.79 respectively.

katinka-hosszu

Hosszu is scheduled to start her defence of her Olympic title on this day in 2021 following the postponement of Tokyo 2021 in the wake of coronavirus.

Instead, she was in home waters and found herself almost a second down from Austria’s Lena Kreundl after the fly leg in 29.31.

Hosszu turned things around quickly though and had moved to her customary place at the head of the field by the halfway point.

She was in a head-to-head tussle with Kreundl, the Austrian 0.19secs ahead at the final turn, only for Hosszu to turn on a last-length 31.46 to accelerate past her rival and touch in 2:13.98 to Kreundl’s 2:14.71 with Alicia Tchorz of Poland third in 2:15.81.

Akos Kalmar Lays Down Dominant Victory Over 1500 Free

Kalmar led for all but 50m to enjoy a victory by 15 seconds in the longest race in the pool in 14:52.00.

Third at the first turn, the 2017 European junior silver medallist moved to the head of the field by the 100m mark where he remained until the conclusion of the race, 15.22secs ahead of Felix Auböck in second.

Auböck’s effort of 15:07.22 came a day after he produced his fastest 400 since 2017 worlds in Budapest.

Jan Micka of the Czech Republic was third in 15:08.48.

In fourth was Kristof Rasovszky, Kalmar’s training partner following the latter’s move to Veszprem.

Adam Telegdy, seventh at last year’s World Championships in Gwangju, stopped the clock at 1:58.55 for a comfortable victory in the 200 back.

The Hungarian split 28.17/58.85/1:29.37 for a gun to tape victory ahead of Jakub Skierka of Poland (1:59.47).

Katalin Burian of Hungary won the women’s equivalent in 2:10.04 ahead of Austria’s Lena Grabowski (2:10.71) and Eszter Szabo-Feltothy (2:11.92).

Kos, born in 2003, enjoyed a dominant victory in the 200IM. The Hungarian was already 1.30secs ahead at the first turn and extended his lead to win in 1:59.06, a time that would have earned him the European junior title last year.

A bright future is predicted, Kos tipped to follow in the footsteps of Hungarian medley aces including four-time Olympic champion Tamas Darnyi and Hosszu.

The teenager, whose father is the head of the local PriceWaterhouseCooper, was able to train throughout lockdown and has a pool in the garden at home, something from which he clearly benefited.

Dominik Bujak of Poland was next home, 3.76secs adrift in 2:02.87.

Jakob Kraska won the men’s 100 free in 48.57, 0.2secs ahead of Milak, with Kornelia Fiedkiewkz touching first in the women’s in 55.49 ahead of Evelyn Verraszto (55.84).

Anna Dowgiert won the women’s 50 fly in 26.46 with Valentin Bayer and Lydie Stepankova taking the men’s and women’s 50m breaststroke titles in 27.77 and 31/46 respectively.

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