Fortunately, no medals were won, but victories were avoided last year: open water swimmer Christoph Rasovsky started the season with a gold medal in Eilat before the World Cup.
| Conflict is escalating in Christoph Rasovsky Square (Photo: Hadi Tombach) |
Do they exercise to keep the finish line tight at the end of a ten mile race?
– If it’s up to me, anyway – replied with a smile Christoph Rasovsky (Balaton ÚK Veszprém), who won the European Cup on Thursday. The swimmer is preparing for the national championship in Debrecen, which will be held in Turkey at the end of April.
– In this regard, open water swimming has changed a lot, since there were much fewer examples of this in the past, but for a long time now, this is almost the only way to end a ten-kilometer battle.
– The reason is that there are more and more of us who practice this sport and many of us are not doing it badly, and the number of medalists is constantly increasing.
– It might be especially difficult to switch to a higher speed after nine thousand to five hundred meters…
– On the one hand, we practice this separately during training, and on the other hand, we also prepare for it mentally. But one also walks into the pool at the end of a distance – the type differs in that it is often the athlete’s tactic to dictate a big pace from the start.
“Gold medals have been avoided for a while – was it important to win in the end?”
Both succeeded “I didn’t think when I won the last time before the race: I wanted to swim well and I wanted to finish on the podium.” Of course, that’s also true, I didn’t stand there until third place was good too…
Yesterday’s victory also shows that your preparations are going well.
“I think we’re fine, there’s nothing to stop us getting ready, and I’ve never had such a good time in the pool before.”
– On the first leg of a series of modern cities launched by the Hungarian Swimming Association this year, many have been surprised.
– I’m partly myself. In the first competition, at Veszprém, we expected to have a good time swimming, as we made it a little easier for the competition, but not because I also swam two hundred and four hundred and eight hundred individual records. In addition, I have not gone so badly to one thousand five hundred, nor have I swam so well in the longest pool in three years as in Visprem. What was really surprising was that I was close to these times on the second stop in Szeged for two weeks.
– Although he has always been a mentally tougher competitor, do these time scores increase his self-confidence?
– Anyway, I didn’t start to worry about swimming well… I haven’t had a problem with training in a while, but the competition always shows you’re in the process of preparing.
– It’s very encouraging three months before the World Cup.
“When news came out that Fukuoka would not host the World Cup in May, I got a little upset: Don’t do that anymore!” Since the end of the twenty-first century, almost every global competition has been held, lest the World Cup be canceled or postponed… Let FINA be a partner in this! He was also surprised that FINA had delayed the announcement for so long, so I spent a few weeks in limbo. Then I was very surprised that we were involved as host, although if I had to guess which country would settle for I would definitely say Hungary.
– The European Championships were held on Lake Luba last May, he was left without a medal in the individual distances, so he has some “accountability” in place, right?
“There is truth in this, but I don’t feel angry at Lake Luba.” Before the Continental race, I promised I wanted to get on the podium in all three runs, and I was close to that, and the bronze came with the relay.
– Then I will immediately quote what he said afterwards after the European bronze: This transformation will only be better next year, because the “little kid”, David Bethlehem, will grow ten centimeters by then and he will definitely improve by ten seconds, so we are going in a championship world for gold.
– I still keep this. The little boy has gotten faster and stronger in the past year, and I see that the girls, specifically Anna and Roca Rica, have also progressed. In December we finished second in the Abu Dhabi World Cup and were close to the Italians who won smoothly at Lake Luba last year. This year, moreover, the rosary member no longer swims a thousand two hundred and fifty meters, but a thousand and five hundred, which is better for us. Americans should never be described, along with the French, Italians, and Germans. And we. We definitely want to fight for the medal in the headscarf.
