Budapest 2024, Day 4 Finals: Noè Ponti Caps Double with 100 IM Gold
Noè Ponti had 24 minutes between his semifinal of the men’s 100 butterfly and the final of the 100 individual medley on Friday at Budapest’s Duna Arena,
As he’s done a lot of lately, the Swiss speedster made sure no one beat him in either.
Ponti augmented his gold in the 50 fly with a win in the 100 IM at the World Short-Course Championships, his time of 50.33 seconds easing to victory.
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Ponti set the meet record, improving by a tenth his semifinal time. He’s .3 seconds ahead of what had been the championships record set in 2018 by Kliment Kolesnikov.
Bernhard Reitshammer claimed a rare medal for Austria in second place in 51.11. Caio Pumputis rallied to deny Michael Andrew a spot on the podium by .02.
Earlier, Ponti eased to a time of 48.89 to finish first in the 100 fly semifinals. That wasn’t an easy feat, as Paris Olympic bronze medalist Ilya Kharun, veteran Chad le Clos and Hungarian Hubert Kos, who was fourth in the 50 back earlier in the session, were among those missing the cut for finals.
The 23-year-old became the first Swiss athlete to win a global title in the pool when he claimed the 50 fly in a 21.32 world record on Wednesday.
Now he has two. How does that feel? “Not too bad, I’d say!” he smiled. “It’s good, it’s a nice feeling. My second race, second world title ever for me and for Switzerland so it’s good.”
Ponti has been in the spotlight in his home country for whom he’s continuing to make history this week. Speaking to Swimming World, he said: “They’re pretty much going crazy, especially in my region and everything. I think they are going pretty crazy and that’s nice!
He only had around 20 minutes between the fly semis and the 100IM final. “I just tried to cool down, warm down, as much as possible even though I didn’t have much time,” he said. ” To relax, to get my breath and relax in the water. So I didn’t have much time to think about the 100Im coming up or so but I think I managed well.”
Ponti told Swimming World in an interview last month that he was taking a long break from the 200 fly with which he struggles physically and mentally.
Instead, he’ll be doing more IM races, an event in which he clearly thrives although he recognises he has work to do. Of why the IM agrees with him, he said: “Just have fun. I think (it’s) the funnest race to do, to swim and I really like it. Hopefully I’ll be able to swim a really good 200IM long-course in the next years and that will be one of the goals. I have to train my breaststroke a little bit but we are going to have time for that.”
