Thaindian News

Debrecen (Hungary), May 27 (IANS) Spain picked up two gold medals, Italy and Germany a gold medal apiece while Slovenia, Poland and Serbia won their first gold on the sixth and penultimate day of the European Swimming Championships in Debrecen, Hungary.

Milorad Cavic won gold for Serbia in the 100m butterfly final Saturday. Cavic touched first in 51.45 seconds just ahead of home favourite Laszlo Cseh (51.77). Matteo Rivolta of Italy took bronze (52.40), reported Xinhua.

Radoslaw Kawecki won Poland’s first gold medal in the 200m backstroke final with a time of 1:55.28 minutes. The Hungarian Peter Bernek came second (1:55.88) and Yakov-Yan Toumarkin of Isreal took the bronze (1:57.35).

There was also a first gold medal for Slovenia in the 50m breaststroke event, Damir Dugonjic winning in 27.32 seconds ahead of Italy’s Fabio Scozzoli (27.49) and Panagiotis Samilidis of Greece (27.64).

Mireia Belmonte Garcia of Spain timed 16:05.34 minutes in the women’s 1500m freestyle final to win gold ahead of Eva Risztov of Hungary (16:10.04) and Erika Villaecija Garcia also of Spain.

In the women’s 200m freestyle, the Italian Federica Pellegrini won gold in 1:56.76 minutes. Germany’s Silke Lippok came second (1:58.19), and Ophelie Cyrielle Etienne of France third (1:58.23).

The women’s 50m backstroke was won by Mercedes Peris of Spain in 28.25 seconds. The judges could not split Arianna Barbieri of Italy and Sanja Jovanovic of Croatia who both won silver medals with an identical time of 28.31 seconds.

In the final event of the day, Germany (Paul Biedermann, Dimitri Colupaev, Clemens Rapp, Tim Wallburger) won the 4×200m freestyle relay in 7:09.17 minutes. Italy (Gianluca Maglia, Riccardo Maestri, Samuel Pizzetti, Filippo Magnini) came second (7:13.10) while Hungary (Dominik Kozma, Gergo Kis, Peter Bernek, Laszlo Cseh) finished third (7:13.60).

With only one day of competition and eight finals remaining, championship hosts Hungary lead the medals table with seven gold medals, eight silvers, and six bronzes, ahead of Germany (6,5,2) in second place and Italy(5,7,4) in third.