World Junior Championships Set to Begin in Peru; David Popovici Headlines Field (Meet Entries)
The FINA World Junior Championships will begin on Tuesday and run through Sunday, with Romania’s David Popovici as the headliner of the competition. Popovici, of course, is coming off a world-record performance in the 100-meter freestyle (46.86) at the recent European Championships in Rome. That meet also included the 17-year-old recording the third-fastest performance in the history of the 200 freestyle, an effort of 1:42.97.
Popovici will contest both of his prime events at World Juniors, which are taking place in Lima, Peru. He is also lined up for several Romanian relays. The World Juniors mark Popovici’s fourth major meet of the summer, complementing the World Championships in June, the European Juniors in July and the European Champs. This competition will be the final junior-level meet of Popovici’s career, and he noted it will be a chance to further acclimate himself with meets that require a significant change in time zones.
The meet will be missing some of the world’s top countries, including the United States and Australia, which opted to bypass the competition. The United States chose not to send a team due to the meet’s proximity to the recently concluded Junior Pan Pacific Championships while Australia indicated its decision to not send a team when the meet was still scheduled for Kazan, Russia. Australia made its decision in response to Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.
Despite the absence of several power nations in the sport, the meet will include several top names among rising stars. Japan’s Mio Narita, who won both medley events at Junior Pan Pacs, is scheduled to compete in those events while Hungarian Nikolett Padar is entered in the 100 freestyle and 200 freestyle. On the men’s side, Poland’s Ksawery Masiuk will race all three backstroke events, with duels expected against South African Pieter Coetze.
