Alyfantis carries Greek hopes for first Worlds medal in short pool

Breaststroke champion to race in Shanghai today

Greece has never won a medal at the World Swimming Championships in a short, 25-meter pool. The best swimmers from this country have achieved to date is the sixth place, twice.

This may well change today, however, as breaststroke champion Romanos Alyfantis is about to dive into the 100-meter breaststroke final of the World Swimming Championships in Shanghai, China, after securing qualification yesterday by clocking 58.54 seconds. The 20-year-old was first in his heat and the second-fastest in the round, behind Ukranian Oleg Lisogor (58.32 seconds), who registered a new championship record.

The Greek’s coach, Zoltan Kollar, believes he can go all the way and win the gold, but Alyfantis appeared more reserved yesterday. “It seems I am able to go for a medal, but gold would be very difficult. Lisogor is unbelievable. In the European Championships, however, he was only one-hundredth of a second faster than me, which means I am close to overtaking him,” he said.

Looking forward to today’s final, he confessed: “I always enjoy these races. These two to three minutes that the whole procedure of the race takes is the reason I am involved with sports. I live the feelings of those moments intensely, and even more so the fact that I have the chance to be next to the top swimmers in the world and compete with them.”