Israeli podium: another gold medal for Gorbenko at the European Swimming Championships, Polonsky won silver

Tonight (Saturday), Israel’s swimming team doubled its number of medals at the European Championships in Belgrade, with three medals – gold, silver and bronze. Anastasia Gorbenko won the gold medal in the 200 meter individual medley, Leah Polonsky finished behind her and won the silver medal with an Olympic criterion for Paris.

Gorbenko set a result of 2:09.75 minutes and completed a streak of three European championships in this event after already winning in Budapest (2021) and Rome (2022). Polonsky set a tremendous result of 2:11.18 minutes, an improvement of over a second from her personal best and almost 3 tenths faster than the criterion.

Chris Fitchugin won the bronze medal in the 50m breaststroke final, in a stroke that took place while it was raining in the pool. Pichugin set a time of 27.02 seconds and broke the Israeli record of Itai Goldfedden set in June 2021 at the Wingate Institute – an improvement of three hundredths. Israel now has 6 medals in the championship: 4 gold, one silver and one bronze.

“It was a very interesting, fun and fast heat, and it all came down to a few hundredths in the end. I was really happy, I finally returned to my records in the 50 meters, I improved the Israeli record, I hadn’t been in this range of results for years and it’s really exciting to get back to it,” said Fitch and Ginn. “I felt very good both in the qualifiers, in the semis and in the finals. I knew I was going to swim very fast, already in the semis I swam two hundredths of my record and now I knew that with the excitement and the status I would swim faster, but I wasn’t thinking at all about the result but about enjoying the massage, the pressure and the adrenaline” .

Ron Polonsky joined his sister Leah this evening and also set an individual Olympic criterion in the 200 meter medley with a new Israeli record of 1:57.01 minutes. Polonsky finished first overall in the semifinals, improving by 98 percent his personal best and the Israeli record he set in 2022 at the World Championship in Hungary. Yaakov Tomarkin finished in 12th place overall with 2:01.33 minutes.

Martin Cartaby finished in 12th place overall in the 50 meter freestyle semi-finals with a time of 22.19 seconds. Michael Leitrovski finished in ninth place in the semi-finals for 100 meter breaststroke with 54.58 seconds, only one tenth of a place in the final. Adam Maraena finished in 15th place with 55.97 seconds.