David Popovici Punches 1:45.07 200 Free To Rank #2 In The World

By Retta Race on SwimSwam

2025 ROMANIAN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Wednesday, April 9th – Sunday, April 13th
• Otopeni, Romania
• LCM (50m)
• Meet Central
• SwimSwam Preview
• Day 1 Recap
• Results
• Livestream

Olympic champion and former world record holder David Popovici dove in for the men’s 200m freestyle on day two of the 2025 Romanian National Championships.

Whenever the 20-year-old freestyle ace swims, the world is on notice, with tonight’s performance checking in among the globe’s best at this point in the season.

After situating himself as the top-seeded swimmer with a casual prelims swim of 1:49.58, Popivici fired off an impressive final result of 1:45.07 to grab the gold and nab a time under the World Aquatics ‘A’ standard of 1:46.70.

Popovici split 24.34/26.86 (51.20)/27.43/26.44 to make the swim look easy, with long strokes seemingly accelerating the dynamo through each lap.

He ultimately got to the wall over 5 seconds ahead of the competition en route to taking over the #2 slot in the world rankings. Only South Korea’s national record holder and Olympic finalist Hwang Sunwoo has been speedier with his season-best 1:45.03 from last November’s Korean National Sports Festival.

Additional Notes

• Darius Stefan Coman reaped gold in the men’s 200m breast in a time of 2:12.76, getting to the wall over 3 seconds ahead of the pack.
• Denisa Bacalu topped the women’s 50m fly podium in a time of 26.80, within striking distance of the World Aquatics ‘A’ standard of 26.23 needed for Singapore.
• The men’s 50m fly saw Vladstefan Mihalache clock a time of 23.53 to fall just .17 outside the ‘A’ benchmark of 23.36.
• Rebecca Diaconescu punched an outing of 1:59.53 in the women’s 200m free for gold as the sole sub-2:01 swimmer of the competition.

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