World Championships, Day 5 Finals: David Popovici Swims Second-Fastest Time Ever in 100 Free, Secures Gold-Medal Double
The closing speed that every other swimmer fears, the tenacity to be at his best in the biggest moments. These attributes that made David Popovici so special when he won world titles and broke a world record at age 17, and he has every ounce of that magic back this year in Singapore.
Now 20, Popovici had already blasted ahead of the field to secure the world title in the 200 freestyle, and now he has overcome a sensational field to take gold in the 100 freestyle, pulling away from the field to swim the second-fastest time in history.
Popovici has never been the speediest swimmer in big finals of the 100 free, and this field had neutral athlete Egor Kornev and Brazil’s Gui Caribe setting the pace. Popovici sat in fourth place at the halfway point, close enough to turn on the jets coming home. Popovici had American Jack Alexy and Australian Kyle Chalmers on either side of him finishing well, but no one would split within four tenths of the Romanian on the second length.
“In a few words, I am really happy to be here. It is as simple as that,” Popovici said. “With regards to the race, I think the one who wins is the one who can detach themselves from their competitors. So I managed to build walls between each of my lanes and imagined I was swimming alone.”
Popovici’s final time was 46.51, breaking his European record of 46.71 set last month by two tenths and finishing just 0.11 of the world record of 46.40 set by Pan Zhanle in the Olympic final last year. Alexy took silver in 46.92 while Chalmers came in at 47.17 for bronze.
Popovici’s homecoming split of 24.02 was the second-best ever recorded, just off the 23.98 split he posted at the European U23 Championships last month. More importantly, the result is a far cry from what took place in Paris, where Popovici finished more than a second behind the winner. This result, on the other hand, is one Popovici considered nearly perfect.
“I improved my underwater the most from last year and what I did differently in the 200 and the 100 especially was the length of the stroke. These are boring, nerdy facts for swimmers, but for me it works,” Popovici said. “Tonight was a 10 out of 10. I’m not one to say that. You never have a 10, but I think today was a 10 out of 10. I’ll enjoy that and I’ll celebrate the party.”
Alexy earned silver in 46.92, matching his result from the World Championships two years ago in Fukuoka, and coming up just short of the American record of 46.81 he set in the semifinals. The time Wednesday made Alexy the fourth-fastest performer in history, and this latest effort has only been beaten by Pan, Popovici and Cesar Cielo, the Brazilian who held a supersuit-aided world record until Popovici broke it in 2022.
“I was talking to David in the ready room there. He just told us to put on a show,” Alexy told NBC Sports in a post-race interview. ” It came down to the last 25 there, and I’m really happy with how I handled myself under pressure, how I moved my way from prelims to semifinals to finals. It was great going 46 again, so I’m really happy with that swim.”
While Alexy was unable to contend for a medal in Paris, he has now become one of the world’s most consistent 100 freestyle performers with the aforementioned silver plus the short course world title he won last December. Alexy is now an experienced international performer, and he has successfully applied lessons learned on that stage to be able to perform in significant finals.
“Last year, I only had the Fukuoka Worlds to build on. I learned a lot of things there. Paris was an insane experience. I had some great successes on some relays. Didn’t quite have great individual performances. Just building on that. Learning from things that need to change, things that need to remain the same,” Alexy said on the NBC broadcast.
“A lot this year was mentally approaching practice with the attitude of it would be great to have some success in the water, go some great times, but it’s not the end of the world if I don’t. I think having some balance in life has really helped me a lot. I’m really proud of myself of coming in here after some inconsistency in the past few weeks with health and training, and I’m really just excited for the rest of the week.”
No active swimmer has the 100 freestyle résumé of Chalmers, who won has now reached the podium in every major final in which he has competed. Chalmers was the Olympic gold medalist in 2016 and world champion in 2023, and he added a bronze here with a time of 47.17, only nine hundredths from his career-best time. Caribe ended up fourth (47.17) with Kornev fifth (47.35).
“I was never going to swim 46.5 or around that mark unfortunately. I would have loved to see 46 next to my name, but I’m really, really proud of that performance, and to come away with a medal in such a stacked final is something I’m extremely proud of,” Chalmers said.
Absent from this final was Pan, who faded to 10th in the semifinals at 47.81, almost one-and-a-half seconds shy of his world record.
