At the Paris Olympic Aquatics Center, all swimmers pass through a space designated for media interaction after their starts and feel quite differently.
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For example, on Friday morning, Barbora Meileišytė, who swam 50 m freestyle, spent a few more minutes trying to catch her breath, breathing deeply after the qualifying races.
Danas Rapšys and Kotryna Teterevkova had earlier asked for water because their throats were dry after the 200 m swims, and they felt too exhausted to talk for long.
There were also cases when swimmers felt nauseous, due to increased acidity caused by a surge of physical effort in a short time in the water.
And Džiugas Miškinis looked as if nothing was wrong, although on Friday morning he swam the last event, the 1500 m – the longest swimming event of the European Championship.
“Tired, but usually after swimming I don’t feel the fatigue that comes after a few hours – then it’s straight to bed. Eat and sleep, sleep,” said the swimmer.
He completed the distance in the 50 m pool in 15 minutes 14.57 seconds.
This is slightly slower than the Lithuanian record he holds (15 minutes 11.56 seconds), which the Kaunas native studying electrical engineering at the University of Kentucky set in May at a competition in Indianapolis.
“Now I can better sense where the mistakes were. I think I emphasized power too much, focused on holding deep underwater, but lacked lightness to glide more on the water. That’s why the time is slower,” analyzed the 21-year-old swimmer. “Inside, I felt better prepared, but the dates affect the overall result.”
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Among the 25 participants in the longest event, he was thirteenth. He was about 16.5 seconds short of the final eight.
After finishing, the coaches suggested watching another swim, so Dž. Miškinis waited another 15 minutes watching the competitors.
“I keep gathering information on who does what well or badly, and I piece it together into the overall swim,” Dž. Miškinis accepted the lessons.
The swimmer trained by Paulius Andrijauskas in Kaunas, who in his youth was known for mischievous behavior and quit training for a year, later returned to the pool noticeably more serious.
To qualify for the Paris Olympic Games, he even completed his studies in an accelerated manner, passing both 11th grade and 12th grade exams – for which he was praised by “LTU Aquatics” president Saulius Binevičius, who approached to congratulate the swimmer after the finish on Friday and gave him an “Open Swim” cap, knowing that Dž. Miškinis likes to swim in open water competitions when he has the opportunity.
Earlier, after the start of the 800 m freestyle event, having spoken about the specifics of long swims, Dž. Miškinis will now return to the USA to continue his studies at the University of Kentucky, and plans to visit Lithuania again in winter to celebrate not only Christmas but also to compete in the Lithuanian swimming championship.
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