Dubai-based swimmer Velimir Stjepanovic admits to surprising himself with the results he achieved at the Swim Cup in Eindhoven, where he smashed two of his own Serbian national records.
Stjepanovic, who was born in Abu Dhabi and has trained in the UAE all his life, posted three personal bests in the 100m, 200m, and 400m freestyle while his 1:46.87 in the 200m places him at No7 in the world this year.
His 200m free saw him improve on his previous Serbian national record of 1:47.00, while his 3:48.25 in the 400m free was 0.08 seconds faster than his previous national record.
In the 200m butterfly, Stjepanovic’s signature event, the 20-year-old knocked off the field by a solid 2.5 seconds, going 1:56.70, which places him seventh in the world rankings for 2014.
He took silver in the 100m freestyle, clocking 49.21 seconds, which was only 0.02 seconds off Sebastiaan Verschuren who took gold.
“Overall, the competition was pretty good, I’m pretty happy with the outcome,” Stjepanovic told Sport360°.
“I wasn’t expecting it to be this good because I had stomach problems and got sick before the meet.
“I’m happy that I had PBs in all three freestyle events. My fly still needs a lot of work, but that’s going to be put in now in the next four months leading up to the European Championships.”
The Swim Cup in Eindhoven was the national championships for the Netherlands, but international swimmers could compete.
Stjepanovic added: “This competition had fairly strong swimmers, I was pushed in every event that I did. The more race practice I get going into the European Championships the better I’ll be.”
His next meet will be the Dubai International Aquatics Championships (April 23-26) and he also has the World Short Course Championships in Doha on his radar at the end of the year.
Stjepanovic will continue to prepare for the European Championships in Dubai until the final three weeks prior to the competition, then head to Serbia and start his taper there, to avoid the August heat of the UAE.
