Kristóf Milák's bravura victory on Saturday and his excellent time in the 200-meter butterfly at the Monaco stop of the Mare Nostrum series prompted the big international magazines to express enthusiastic opinions.
By defeating the Japanese world ranking leader Honda Tomoru, our Olympic champion jumped from eighth to second place in the current ranking and announced his claim to the gold medal of the Paris Olympics.
For the sake of order: Kristóf Milák on Saturday at the third stop of the Mare Nostrum series, in Monaco, II. In the swimming pool named after Prince Albert, he won the 200-meter butterfly with a time of 1:53.94 minutes, and thus jumped to second place in the world rankings for the 2023-2024 season, from eighth place behind the recently defeated Honda Tomoru of Japan, the world champion of the event in Doha. (Honda became the world champion on February 14 in Doha with 1:53.88, previously on September 29 of last year he won at the Asian Championship with 1:53.18, which is considered the best time result of the season.)
If the name of the swimming pool has already been discussed, II. Albert was also in the audience and saw Milák's sensational swim.
Telling half-times from Kristóf Milák
In order to be able to put our Olympic champion and world record holder's swimming in context on Saturday, let's take a look at his performances this year over this distance, broken down into fifty meters:
Monaco National Championship (April 11) Barcelona
50 m: 25.13 sec 24.91 sec 25.88 sec
100m: 54.05 (28.92) 54.28 (29.37) 56.10 (30.22)
150 n: 1:23.76 (29.71) 1:24.90 (30.62) 1:25.97 (29.87)
200m: 1:53.94 (30.18) 1:54.90 (30.00) 1:55.67 (29.70)
What is striking is that the world record holder was the fastest in the middle section, between 50 and 150 meters far in Monaco, it is obvious that he learned from his mistake in Barcelona, when perhaps he didn't trust himself enough and didn't know how tired he would be during the race. That's why he didn't press the middle hundred meters and left everything to chance. He finished well, but at 200, the course ran out, the wall came, in vain he cracked a dizzying time, 29.70 in the last fifty, Kim Min Szop beat him by two tenths.
He left nothing to chance
Two days later, in Monaco, our champion left nothing to chance. One definition of intelligence is the ability to adapt to changing conditions. According to the signs, Milák is an intelligent competitor, because he masterfully constructed his Saturday swim by learning from his own mistakes. He immediately took the lead, led all the way and confidently ordered the reigning world champion behind him.
swimswam.com praised the 24-year-old Hungarian:
Although Milák did not improve his own Mare Nostrum record from 2022, 1:53.89, he erased Honda from the top list in Monaco (1:54.22 from last year). Milák improved by more than a second and a half over the course of two days, compared to his time of 1:55.67 in Barcelona.
The title of the swimmingworldmagazine.com article: Milák shines in Monaco.
Kristóf Milák continues his big comeback after missing the 2024 World Championships in Doha (and the 2023 Fukuokas as well) and also giving up training for a while. At Mare Nostrum's previous stop in Barcelona, he won the 100 butterfly, but struggled in the 200 and lost his four-year international unbeaten streak. He didn't have such a problem in Monaco, he easily won with 1:53.94, he hasn't swum such a good time since 2022.
However, let's not forget one thing when we cheer on Milák's result in Monaco:
now he is just where he was seven years ago, at the age of 17, when he won the European Youth Championship in Netanya with a junior world record of 1:53.79 minutes.
More precisely, not even there, since his time at that time is 15 hundredths better than the 1:53.94 he swam in Monaco...
But back to the duchy! On Sunday at 9:56 a.m., Milák will jump into the water in the third heat of the 100-meter butterfly, with a course next to Honda, and among the participants of the number are such classics as Chad Le Clos from South Africa or Noe Ponti from Switzerland, who is currently ranked second in the world ranking (50.16). . Milák is in seventh place in the same ranking with the 50.95 he swam in Barcelona.
Then at 10:51, Milák will also compete in the sixth heat of the 200 meters, which is a trip to a terrain he is not familiar with.
Featured image: Source. fina-budapest2022
