After a silver Saturday evening, when Tomas Navikonis won the first medal at the European Championships, Rūta Meilutytė and Kotryna Teterevkova advanced to the semifinals in the 50 m breaststroke heats, and the mixed 4×200 m freestyle relay team reached the final with the second-best time, so the team will fight for a medal on Saturday evening.
However, not all of our swimmers had good emotions from their starts.
In the 50 m freestyle event, Jokūbas Keblys finished 37th, and Tajus Juška 66th.
T.Juška, who won two medals at the European Youth Championships this summer, was particularly disappointed with both the sprint distance and his overall performance at the senior championships in Paris.
“The result is poor,” said the 17-year-old talent after completing the distance in 23.08 seconds. “But I did not show my best athletic form overall at this competition. The first day was still not bad, but then I felt worse every day, and the results were disappointing. I accepted it, there is nothing to be done.
If such a slump comes after a training camp in the highlands, there is not much you can do. We try to rest, swim for feeling, improve technical and psychological aspects, but I have to learn from mistakes and move on.”
J.Keblys is a more experienced swimmer, but he was unique at this championship in that he competed in only one event. It ended after 22.45 seconds.
“It was hard to wait,” said the 24-year-old swimmer who waited six days for his start at the championship. “I saw a lot of disappointment and happiness – yesterday we saw how well Tomas swam. Some inspire after their starts, others are disappointed – there is tension all week.
I won’t lie – the result was disappointing. Of course, I suffered an injury a couple of weeks ago (twisted my back doing exercises). For a while, I couldn’t work out in the gym, and could barely swim a few hundred meters in the pool.
Also, the first start is always difficult. But if I swim only 50 m, I have to manage.”
J.Keblys’s father is a well-known rowing coach Kęstutis Keblys, who previously coached the Lithuanian rowing team and became the coach of the Ukrainian team a year and a half ago.
“He was an Olympian himself, he definitely gives advice and it really helps,” said the swimmer about his relationship with his father.
The Panevėžys native who studied at the University of Florida is unique in that he often focuses only on the 50 m freestyle event during competitions, while other swimmers try to compete in several distances or swimming styles.
At the European Championships, J.Keblys’s performance lasted 22.45 seconds and is completely opposite, for example, to Džiugas Miškinis, who swam the 800 and 1500 m distances, taking a little over 15 minutes.
“Sometimes there are days or weeks when I think: I swim only one distance, but what if it goes badly?” J.Keblys admitted. “But I really like sprinting, and the training system, the variety of exercises – that’s why I swim, I enjoy sprinting.
Yes, I don’t really envy Džiugas Miškinis, but if he likes swimming such a long distance? If I could swim long distances so well, maybe I would swim them too. Unfortunately, I have to swim only 50 meters.”
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Things went even worse at this championship for Tomas Lukminas, who was supposed to start in the 50 m freestyle but fell ill on Monday and could not compete in other events.
Another Lithuanian-speaking swimmer representing Iceland, Simonas Elias Statkevicius, competed in the 50 m freestyle heats, swimming in 22.81 seconds and placing 57th among 77 sprinters.
Lithuanian record holder awaits changes
In the 100 m backstroke heats on Saturday, 18-year-olds Dominikas Grudinskij and Mantas Kaušpėdas competed.
Vilnius native D.Grudinskij was faster this time than his compatriot, swimming in 55.61 seconds and placing 43rd among 66 participants in the event.
This was an unexpected result, as a semifinal qualification was more expected from M.Kaušpėdas, but he finished 50th.
Swimming in 56.08 seconds, the Klaipėda native probably breathed the loudest among others after the finish in the Paris pool, and even sat down on the floor for a few minutes after swimming.
The European Youth Championships winner, Lithuanian record holder in several backstroke events, was looking for answers on his feet about what went wrong this time in Paris.
“After the relay’s poor result, I felt confused. A lot of effort was put in, but the result was poor. I tried not to break down, thinking it was just the first burnt pancake. But after the 50 m backstroke event, when it seemed I gave my all, but the result did not reflect that, a feeling of helplessness appeared.
Today I went to the start almost without expectations, which is sometimes quite good because you don’t overload your mind. I wanted to give my all, which I did, but the result is still poor. And I don’t understand: why?”
M.Kaušpėdas hopes to find new answers after important changes in his career.
Having trained in Great Britain for the past year, the swimmer will travel to the USA in a few days, where he will start a new four-year career stage at the University of Tennessee.
“The last two summers show that I am stuck somewhere – either in the overall training program or preparation. I think changing coaches and location will benefit me,” he said. “I think it’s good to change specialists as you climb the career ladder; I’m not the kind of person who works with the same coach all his life. It’s healthy to change the environment and training methods.
I’m only 18 years old, and I have been working very seriously for only three years, while, for example, Danas (Rapšys) or Andrius (Šidlauskas) have ten years of experience and know better what kind of work suits them.”
