On the first day of Hungarian nationals in Eger, triple Olympic silver medallist László Cseh suffered his first senior domestic defeat in the 400m medley at the hands of Gergo Kis.
Cseh, who raced four times on the first day (100m back and 50m 'fly heats, for the reader who wished to know), led Kis by a bodylength going into freestyle but the pretender whacked out a homecoming 56.8sec to outstretch the European champion and steal his national crown by 0.18sec, 4:13.22 to 4:13.40. Since his ascendency to senior waters, Cseh had never been beaten in domestic waters over 400m medley. Both men are likely to be still in fairly heavy training, given the bigger prize in home waters at Euro titles in Budapest next month.
When Cseh won the European 400m medley crown in a continental record of 4:09.59 (textile leggings) at Eindhoven in March 2008, Kis finished 7th in 4:18.36. Cseh won silver behind Michael Phelps (USA) at the Olympic Games in Beijing in 4:06.16, in an arena R-Evolution leggings adjusted in response to the LZR and containing something like 30 to 40% polyurethane (the Hungarian wore textile leggings on his way to silver over 200m medley) , while Kis, 22 this year, set a best time of 4:10.40 in a poly suit last summer at Rome world titles.
They remain the only two men ever to get inside the 4:12.36 at which legendary Tamas Darnyi held the world record back in 1991. The bronze in Eger today went to Gergely Gyurta, 19 this year and younger brother of breaststroke world champion Daniel, in 4:18.35, a best time, inside the 4:18.62 he set in shiny season last year at European junior championships.
In other events, Zsuzsanna Jakabos, friend and teammate of world 400m medley champion Katinka Hosszu, claimed the 200m butterfly title in 2:10.07, while the men's 20m freestyle went to Dominik Kozma in 1:50.43.
Many thanks to Zoltán Orlay, of uszovilag, Hungary's premier swim website, for contributing to this report.
