Sette Colli Trophy to Feature David Popovici, Sarah Sjostrom, Numerous Top Swimmers from Europe and Beyond
Many of Europe’s best swimmers as well as visitors from Japan, Canada and elsewhere will race this weekend at the 59th annual Sette Colli Trophy, the last major long course meet in Europe this summer as swimmers turn their focus to next month’s World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan. The meet will take place Friday through Sunday (June 23-25).
Seven swimmers who won individual gold medals at last year’s Worlds in Budapest will be racing as they prepare to defend their titles. David Popovici, who won world titles in the 100 freestyle and 200 freestyle last year before breaking the 13-year-old world record in the 100 free and becoming the third-fastest man ever in the 200 free, will compete in his two main events. Thomas Ceccon, the world-record breaker in the 100 backstroke, will be in action along with Italian countryman Nicolo Martinenghi, and 50 free Worlds winner Ben Proud will be in action. Hungary’s Kristof Milak was listed on the initial entry list, but he is unlikely to attend after announcing his withdrawal from the World Championships.
For the women, 10-time individual world champion Sarah Sjostrom highlights the 50 free, 100 free and 50 butterfly, and backstroker Kylie Masse, last year’s world champion in the 50-meter race, and breaststroker Ruta Meilutyte, the resurgent world champion in the 50 breaststroke, will get some additional international experience in Rome. Those
Tom Dean and Duncan Scott, the British pair who went 1-2 in the 200 free at the Tokyo Olympics, will face off against Popovici in the four lap race at Sette Colli, and they lead a strong contingent from their country that also includes Matt Richards, James Guy, Lewis Burras, James Wilby, Anna Hopkin, Freya Anderson, Abbey Wood, Katie Shanahan and Freya Colbert. The host-nation Italian team will include Ceccon, Martinengi, Simona Quadarella, Gabriele Detti, Lorenzo Mora, Alberto Razzetti, Margherita Panziera, Federico Burdisso and the breaststroke trio of Benedetta Pilato, Ariana Castiglioni and Martina Carrarro.
Tes Schouten, an emerging Dutch breaststroker who ranks among the top swimmers in the world in her events this year, will face off against the Italian swimmers, Meilutyte, Reona Aoki, Sophie Hansson and Mona McSharry in some loaded events. The men’s breaststroke events are no less competitive with Martinenghi and his Italian teammates Federico Poggio, Simone Cersauolo and Fabio Scozzoli racing Wilby, Dutch Olympic silver medalist Arno Kamminga and Worlds silver medalist Erik Persson.
The women’s freestyle events in Rome are fronted by Olympic silver medalist Siobhan Haughey, with Sjostrom, Hopkin, Anderson and Marrit Steenbergen among the other big names in the 100 free. In the men’s backstroke events, Ceccon and Mora will race Greece’s Apostolos Christou and South Africa’s Pieter Coetze.
Others with medal-winning credentials from major meets racing at Sette Colli include Hungarians Szebasztian Szabo, David Verraszto and Boglarka Kapas along with Brazil’s Fernando Scheffer, Switzerland’s Noe Ponti, the Netherlands’ Kira Toussaint and Israel’s Anastasia Gorbenko.
Full entry lists for the meet can be found here. Once racing begins, live results will be posted here.
Tes Schouten, an emerging Dutch breaststroker who ranks among the top swimmers in the world in her events this year, will face off against the Italian swimmers, Meilutyte, Reona Aoki, Sophie Hansson and Mona McSharry in some loaded events. The men’s breaststroke events are no less competitive with Martinenghi and his Italian teammates Federico Poggio, Simone Cersauolo and Fabio Scozzoli racing Wilby, Dutch Olympic silver medalist Arno Kamminga and Worlds silver medalist Erik Persson.