Hubert Kós Beats Kristóf Milák in 100 Butterfly Showdown at Hungarian Championships
The first event of the finals session at the Hungarian Championships on Saturday was the 200-meter backstroke, but the discipline did not feature reigning Olympic champion Hubert Kós. The decision by Kós to bypass his premier event followed the NCAA Championships where he starred with the University of Texas and the impact of the rigours of switching from yards to long-course metres come the final day of the national meet.
Instead, he came through in style in the 100 fly.
Dueling with Olympic champion Kristóf Milák, Kós claimed victory in the 100 fly behind a time of 50.55. The performance was .12 quicker than the 50.67 produced by Milák, who grabbed gold last summer at the Paris Games. Kós went out in 23.68, building a lead over Milák, who split 24.15. While Milák was closing down the stretch, Kós maintained his advantage and was almost a half-second faster than the 50.96 he clocked for silver to Milák at last year’s European Championships.
It has been quite a few weeks for Kós, who in March helped the University of Texas capture the NCAA team championship. During the NCAA Champs, Kós won all three of his individual events, the 200 individual medley, 100 backstroke and 200 backstroke. The backstroke events were won in NCAA-record time.
At the Hungarian Champs, Kós previously earned titles in the 50 backstroke and 100 backstroke, the 100 back claimed in an eye-opening effort of 52.24. He also won the 200 individual medley in an impressive 1:56.40. Put it all together and Kós, coached by Bob Bowman, looks on track for a big summer at the World Championships in Singapore although he said earlier in the meet he won’t contest the 200IM.
Around 15 minutes later Kós joined the BVSC-ZUGLÓ quartet for the anchor leg of the 4×2. Come the final turn and Kós was 0.68 behind Nandor Nemeth of FTC, a deficit he turned into a 0.73 advantage over the last 50 as he split 1:47.37 to guide BVSC-ZUGLÓ to victory in 7:15.19. Although Nemeth had some health issues which restricted his involvement to one individual outing in the 50 free, it was a superb performance by Kós, especially coming so soon after his 100 fly victory.
Kós leaves Kaposvár with nine gold medals – four individual and five relays – plus a bronze to make it 10 in all.
“I woke up today thinking that this is the last day and I’m not sure I’ll survive these two events, the 100 butterfly and the relay,” he said through the Hungarian federation. “Compared to this, the 100 butterfly went very well, I haven’t watched the split times yet, but I think I competed very well with Kristóf – it was basically about that, to compete, the time is secondary. I beat the Olympic champion in the event, it’s always a special feeling, and I had ten minutes until the relay. When I got there the race had already started, and so I managed to get a time that surprised not only me, but maybe even a few other people. The whole national championship went amazingly well, I didn’t expect it to be so good, especially not the 200 medley and this 200 freestyle – which, ironically, somehow felt the best of all.”
In Kós’ absence, Benedek Kovacs won the men’s 200 backstroke in 1:56.77, a time that will send Kovacs to the World Championships. Meanwhile, Katalin Burian secured a narrow victory in the women’s 200 backstroke, as her 2:10.55 was just ahead of the 2:10.62 of Dora Molnar. Molnar had the lead over Burian at the 150, but Burian closed in 32.73 to pull out the comeback.
Henrietta Fangli won the women’s 50m breaststroke in 30.61 for her second Hungarian record of the meet following her 1:06.87 over 100 breast. Valentin Bayer of Austria headed the men’s one-length race with Marcos Egri-Martin the first Hungarian home in 28.70.
Three men broke the 8:00 barrier in the 800 freestyle, headed by Kristof Rasovszky. Coming off a national record in the 400 freestyle, Rasovszky touched the wall in 7:47.04 to beat David Betlehem (7:48.02) by nearly a second. They were followed by Zalan Sarkany, who recorded a swim of 7:53.34.
Ajna Kesely prevailed in the women’s 800 freestyle in 8:33.94 with Panna Ugrai quickest in the women’s 100 fly, going 58.47.
The BVSC women’s quartet also pulled in the 4×200m relay in 8:08.74.