Dubai’s Velimir Stjepanovic was thrilled to be crowned European champion in a long course event for the first time ever yesterday, as he claimed gold in the 400m freestyle in Berlin.
The Abu Dhabi-born Serb, who lives and trains in the UAE, clocked 3:45.66 to touch the wall first at the European Championships, 1.25 seconds ahead of Italy’s Andrea Mitchell D’Arrigo, who touched home in 3:46.91. Jay Lelliott of Britain took the bronze in 3:47.50
Stjepanovic led from start to finish and at one point was leading by more than 2.5 seconds.
The Serb held on despite slowing in the last lap to take the win and post a new personal best.
World record-holder Paul Biedermann of Germany failed to qualify for the final, finishing ninth in the morning’s preliminaries.
Stjepanovic had already claimed success on the European stage having won gold in the 200m butterfly in the short course championships in Denmark last year but he admits topping the podium in long course has a special taste.
“It was definitely awesome,” Stjepanovic told Sport360° after his race. “My first European long course medal, for it to be a gold is a big step forward in the right direction.
“I definitely went in wanting to win. My nerves were quite high so I didn’t know what to expect, but I felt good diving in.
“I was first the entire way, that was the game plan. That’s how I race, go out hard and bring back whatever I can.
“This is certainly a different picture to short course. It’s a great stepping stone towards the Rio 2016 Olympics and is a good base to work on.”
The 21-year-old, who had finished sixth in the 200m butterfly final at the London 2012 Olympics, still has two more events in Berlin. He will swim the 200m freestyle heats today and will contest the 200m butterfly heats tomorrow.
On whether he’ll feel differently about his upcoming events now that’s he’s already won gold, Stjepanovic said: “Not really, I’m going to celebrate a little bit tonight, but it’s a clean slate starting from tomorrow.” Stjepanovic’s coach, Chris Tidey, paid tribute to his student’s physio, Marko, who has helped the Serb navigate his training around a lingering back problem.
“We’re really, really happy. We’ve prepared in a slightly different way this season. We’ve had to change the type of training a bit because of Velimir’s back. I believe this success is because of Marko, his physio. Without him we wouldn’t even be in the pool training to the level which we’ve needed him to,” said Tidey.
“At the same time, there’s excitement. We’ve got two more events to come, so we need two more big swims.
“He improved on his PB by 2.5 seconds which at his age is massive. It’s testament to how hard he’s worked.”
