Spanish swimming closed its competition at the European Championships in Rome 2022 without any medals in the online tests. He had not left a continental championship empty for 16 years, since the Budapest European Championships in 2006. Despite the remarkable growth of some swimmers from the new batch, the metals crisis persists in one of those cyclical potholes that Hugo González saved with his three medals at the previous European Championships in 2021. A month and a half ago at the World Cup, the RFEN delegation did not achieve any finalists for the first time since 1998.
The two Spanish options on the last day of competition were left in the lurch. Neither Carles Coll (200m medley) nor the very young 4x100m medley relay shone at the farewell.
In the final of the 200 m medley, Carles Coll (CN Sabadell) finished 7th, despite qualifying in the semifinals with the sixth fastest time and the second in very tight preliminaries.
The bracista from Tarragona, only 20 years old, one of the firm values of the Spanish quarry, signed 5th place in the first butterfly relay, in the back he fell to 7th, in the breaststroke -his specialty- he reached recover a position, but in the final post, the front crawl, he finished 7th, surpassed by the Greek Vazaios. The gold went to the Hungarian Hubert Kos (1m57s72).
Coll, yes, fell again under 2 minutes (1m59s96) -he is the third Spanish swimmer in history to fall below the two-minute barrier in the 200 styles, after Hugo González and Eduardo Solaeche-.
"I have done the fastest part of my life up to 150, it was my eleventh or twelfth time swimming in this championship and in the end I have paid for it, it has cost me a bit the last post. I had to try it. In the future I will be able to being there in front with the others; I am very happy with the steps forward that I have taken as a swimmer", said the young man from Tarragona.
In the 4x100 IM relay final, the Spanish quartet, made up of Nico García, Carles Coll -who barely had half an hour to recover from his 200 IM final-, Mario Mollà and Sergio de Celis, came in eighth and last. He had qualified for the semifinals with the last time (8th, with 3m37s09, almost 3 seconds behind Italy).
In the seven days of competition in the 50-meter pool of the Foro Italico, the Spanish delegation showed good manners in the speed tests. The most outstanding performance was that of the 4x100 freestyle quartet that came fourth in the final on Saturday, just 1.03 seconds from the bronze, and set a new Spanish record for the distance, 3m13s73, which lowered the national record by three seconds established at the Rio Games.
It included Carles Coll and his peers Sergio de Celis (22), from CN Sabadell, Mario Mollà (20), from CN Terrassa, and Luis Domínguez (19), from EM El Olivar.
Other outstanding Spanish swimmers in the European were the young Paula Otero (18), from CN Arteixo, who was fourth in the final of the 1,500 free, in which Ángela Martínez (KZM Swimming) was sixth. The Balearic Joan Lluís Pons (CN Sant Andreu) was fifth in his third European final of 400 styles. They were the best individual performances.
Special recognition also deserves Barcelona's Jessica Vall, who at 33 years old qualified for her fifth consecutive European final in the 200 breaststroke (she was 8th).
One of the great disappointments of the Spanish delegation was Mireia Belmonte (31), who on her return to international competition a year after the Tokyo Games failed to qualify for any final of the five events she swam.
The swimmer from Badalona, out of her best form (she began training in January, after a half-year hiatus), closed her competition in the European Championship with a poor 17th place in the preliminaries of the 400 free, a test in which she had been a triple European medalist (silver in 2012 and bronze in 2014 and 2016).
