David Popovici clocked the best time in the 200-meter freestyle heats at the 2024 Paris Olympics, but the press in the United States chose to highlight a completely different athlete.
In the fourth heat, the last one he participated in, Popovici won the race with a time of 1:45.65, followed by Belgian Lucas Henveaux, who impressed the Americans.
Henveaux made an astonishing comeback in the last 50 meters of the race, moving from 8th place to 2nd, achieving an unexpected qualification for the semifinals in the process.
"David Popovici entered the water for the first time at these Games, took the lead, and never looked back. Hwang Sunwoo and Luke Hobson remained in 2nd and 3rd places until the last 50 meters when Lucas Henveaux showed great speed in finishing the race in lane 8 and moved up to 2nd place. Popovici recorded the best time of the morning," noted those at Swim Swam, a specialized website in world swimming.
David Popovici will enter the arena in the second semifinal on Sunday starting at 9:53 p.m. He will start from the best lane, lane 4. He will once again compete against Lucas Henveaux, just like in the heats. Besides the Belgian, David Popovici will swim alongside Rafael Miroslaw (Germany), Thomas Neill (Australia), Maximilian Giuliani (Australia), Karsuhiro Matsumoto (Japan), Duncan Scott (Great Britain), and Alessandro Ragaini (Italy).
D.A.