Zsuzsanna Jakabos, Mireia Belmonte Open 2015 at Luxembourg Euro Meet

LUXEMBOURG – Hungary’s Zsuzsanna Jakabos and Spain’s Mireia Belmonte opened up their 2015 campaigns with wins during day one of the Luxembourg Euro Meet.

The meet started off with a bit of an upset as Hungary’s Zsuzsanna Jakabos upended Spain’s Mireia Belmonte in the women’s 400-meter IM.

Belmonte had an amazing World short course meet in December and was the only person to have an regular success against European Swimmer of the Year Katinka Hosszu in 2014.

Today, Jakabos picked up the win, 4:43.02 to 4:43.14, in the timed final event. That moves the two to sixth and seventh in the early world standings.

Spain’s Beatriz Gomez wound up third overall in 4:45.03.

Jacob Heidtmann hit the wall in 4:21.73 to win the men’s 400-meter IM. That was a dominant finish considering Kevin Wedel took second in 4:25.31. Alexis Santos wound up third in 4:25.47.

Belmonte returned in the women’s 800-meter free to win in 8:35.58 as she is rounding into early season form. Leonie Beck finished second in 8:37.14, while Melania Costa placed third in 8:38.10.

Spain’s Antonio Arroyo closed out the night with a 15:25.52 to win the men’s 1500 free. Poul Zellmann (15:45.19) and Eetu Piiroinen (15:49.94) placed second and third.

In preliminary competition, Jakabos continued her strong night with a second strong swim, this time in the women’s 200-meter fly.

She dropped a meet-record time of 2:10.08 to move to fifth in the early world rankings. That swim eclipsed the 2:10.55 record set by Katinka Hosszu last year, and secured Jakabos the top seed out of prelims.

Martina Van Berkel finished second in 2:11.30, while Spain’s Judith Ignacio beat Belmonte for the final podium spot, 2:12.49 to 2:13.10.

Also in prelims, Victor Bromer crushed the field with a 1:58.42 to earn the top seed heading into finals. That’s a bit of fhis fourth-ranked time of 1:57.22 from the Skagerrak Swim earlier this year.

Carlos Peralta (2:00.17) and Laszlo Cseh (2:00.71) qualified second and third in the preliminary heats.

In the final preliminary session of the night, Hungary’s Krisztian Takacs, Zsuzsanna Jakobos, Gabor Balog and Fanni Gyurinovics led qualifying in the mixed 400-meter free relay with a 3:37.69.

2015 Luxembourg Euro Meet, Day One – Results

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