Croatia's Gordan KozuljWon
Croatia's Gordan Kozulj won the men's 200m backstroke in 1:58.70 to retain his title ahead of Austrian Markus Rogan and Croatia's Marko Strahija while Austria's Mirna Jukic won the women's 200m breaststroke ahead of Germany's Anne Poleska and Sweden's Emma Igelstrom.
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Van Almsick world 200m record
August 04, 2002
BERLIN: Germany's Franziska van Almsick has set a world record of 1min 56.64sec for the women's 200m freestyle at the European swimming championships here to put her tribulations of recent years firmly behind her.
The previous mark of 1:56.78 was set by the 24-year-old at the world championships on September 6 1994 in Rome.
Van Almsick's career had appeared to be on the wane in recent years after she shot to fame as a 14-year-old, missing a freestyle 200m gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
She similarly missed out four years later at Atlanta and at the the 2000 Games in Sydney she left the arena in tears when she failed even to qualify for the semi-finals of the 200m butterfly.
There, she also failed to reach the women's 200m freestyle final and went home having failed to add a first gold to a total of seven individual Olympic medals.
Indeed, until these championships, she had gone seven years without an individual title.
But "Franzi" was smiling again after edging out Romania's Camelia Potec and Alena Popchanka of Belarus.
Her success gave her a fourth title here after the 100m relay, the 4x100m and 4x200m.
She was tearful at the end – and said she hadn't even enjoyed the experience.
"I felt bad the whole day," she told fans after mounting the winner's podium. "Everyone was talking about the record except me."
Van Almsick will now target more success in the 4x100 medley which would take her European gold medal total to 18.
In 1993, she won six disciplines. Thomas Rupprath gave Germany another success in the men's 100m butterfly, beating Ukrainians Andriy Serdinov and Denis Sylantyev to the line.
Rupprath timed 51.94sec to take the title by 0.23sec and add to his earlier win in the 50m backstroke.
Croatia's Gordan Kozulj won the men's 200m backstroke in 1:58.70 to retain his title ahead of Austrian Markus Rogan and Croatia's Marko Strahija while Austria's Mirna Jukic won the women's 200m breaststroke ahead of Germany's Anne Poleska and Sweden's Emma Igelstrom.
For Igelstrom it meant she waved goodbye to the chance of a hattrick having won the 50m and 100m titles.
The German men's 4x200m relay team failed to add to their country's haul as the Italian quartet pipped them to the line with Greece taking a surprise third place.
Russian star Alexandre Popov set the best heat time in the 50m freestyle with the final his last chance to keep up his run of always managing at least one gold at the Euros.
Agence France-Presse © News Limited
