This Sunday Miguel Nascimento achieved the minimums for Paris 2024. The Benfica swimmer finished the first 50 meters of the first leg of the 4×100 freestyle relay in 21.91 seconds, surpassing the Olympic qualifying mark of 21.96.
“I still can’t even breathe. I don’t even know what to say. Finally I did. I guess I still don’t believe it. I have to call my wife [Victoria Kaminskaya nadadora olímpica em Londres 2016] count on celebrating with her. I would like to thank the colleagues who participated with me in the relay, the federation and everyone who gave me the opportunity to achieve minimums. I guess I’m still not myself. Now it’s less of a burden for me. I hope that from now on everything will be more natural, easier for us to achieve the goal we all want,” the swimmer confessed.
Portuguese swimming has now qualified three athletes – Miguel Nascimento, Diogo Ribeiro and Camila Rebelo – for Paris 2024. “An Olympic qualifying start has never been so successful,” said José Machado, sports director of the Portuguese Swimming Federation.
On the last day of the Portuguese Open, which took place in Funchal from Thursday to Sunday, Francisca Martins broke the national record in the 200m freestyle. The swimmer from Foca Quinta da Lixa won superbly with 2:00:05 minutes, surpassing the previous maximum in Portugal that already belonged to her (2:00:96). Francisca Martins had already surpassed the national record for the 100m freestyle on the first day of the event by winning the final by 56.25 seconds, bettering the previous maximum (56.39) set by Ana Pinho Rodrigues.
In the final of the 50-meter butterfly (non-Olympic distance), Diogo Ribeiro added another triumph, but this time without a record. The 18-year-old leaves Funchal with three Olympic minimums and three broken national records (including one twice).
In all, about 700 athletes took part, 29 national records were broken (10 of them absolute) over the four days and José Machado couldn’t be happier. “At an Open in Portugal, which we wanted to be a key moment for achieving minimums for the main international competitions of this season, namely the Fukuoka World Cup, European Under 23 Dublin, 30 points were achieved under the established criteria. Added four minimum As for the Paris 2024 Games, two qualified swimmers conclude that the process is well underway. rankings European and world championships of their competitions, we can clearly state that never before has an Olympic qualifying start been so successful,” said the sports director of the FPN.
Source: DN
