Worlds: Diogo Ribeiro Thrilled with Silver, Chance to Make History for Portugal
Diogo Ribeiro started his conversation Monday night by apologizing for his English. There was no translation needed for the howls of joy and sobbing tears that awaited him when his interview concluded and he reached a throng of rapturous Portuguese teammates.
Ribeiro made history Monday night with a silver medal in the men’s 50 butterfly at the World Aquatics Championships. In 22.80 seconds, the 18-year-old vaulted from a promising youth swimmer with World Junior records to his name to a genuine factor on the global scene, in a way that none of his countrymen ever has before.
“I wasn’t that good in the sessions; prelims and the semifinal weren’t that good,” Ribeiro said. “But I got back on the final and that’s we can say, the third one was the time.”
Ribeiro’s journey this year was arduous and his triumph emotional. He sustained injuries in a motorcycle accident earlier this year that kept him out of the water. A month before Worlds, he had a nasty bout of COVID-19 that curtailed his training for a full week.
Given the headwinds, his Worlds expectations were modest. He didn’t show much in prelims or semifinals to dispel that feeling. He was sixth in prelims in 23.14, tied with eventual gold medalist Thomas Ceccon, then barely made finals in seventh in 23.04, escaping a swim-off by .01.
He made the outside lane work for him in the final Monday night. He cleaned up his underwater to stay with the leading pack off the block, and he brandished the speed he is becoming known for to touch in second place, just behind the winning 22.68 of Ceccon and ahead of France’s Maxime Grousset, who had been first in prelims and semis. Grousset garnered bronze in 22.82.
Ribeiro’s time lowered his World Junior record in the event. It was a reorganization of the podium from Euros last summer, when Ribeiro got bronze in 23.07, then a national record.
Once he got off the pool deck, he was enveloped in an embrace by his coaches, national teammates and staffers, the cries of the green-clad mob filing the lower hallways at the Marine Messe Hall in Fukuoka.
“They just said, I told you, I told you. Because I didn’t believe it,” Ribeiro said. “Earlier I was expecting fourth or fifth. I’m super happy.”
To say Portugal has a limited history of international excellence is putting it lightly. They have no history of it. Despite being a coastal nation in a power center for the sport, they had never before won a medal at Worlds since then-FINA inaugurated the competition in 1973. The Olympics have been no better: The last Portuguese swimmer to make an Olympic final was way back in 1984 thanks to breaststroker Alexandre Yokochi, and even that was a Games diminished by boycotts. It’s no better on the continent: Portugal has won only four medals (one silver, three bronze) out of 3,094 possible at European Long Course Championships dating back to 1926. One of those was Ribeiro last summer.
Diogo Ribeiro has the chance to be a global medal contender from a country long buffeted by swimming powers but never able to sustain any excellence of its own. He hopes to be the forerunner of a sea change in the program.
“I saw my Instagram and it’s burning up,” he said. “It’s the first medal in worlds for Portugal. It’s kind of changing the way of swimming in Portugal. We can see that in the way I can motivate younger people from my country. That’s the most important thing for me.”