The Finnish swimmer was at his best in his bravura journey.
Matti Mattsson finished sixth in the 200-meter breaststroke World Cup final at the long-course World Cup swimming in Doha. China won the gold Zhiao Dongsilver of the Netherlands Caspar Corbeau and bronze of the United States Nic Fink.
Sixth place is the best ranking of Finnish swimmers in the ongoing World Championships.
Mattsson swam in the final with a time of 2:09.80. He missed the medal by about a second. A medal would still have been possible.
– Maybe the swimming sagged a bit in the final. Time enough for a bronze medal was not impossible. However, he is well on his way when his place in the Olympics is secured, Urheilu’s expert Ville Kallinen comment in the comment section.
Mattsson was the fastest swimmer in the preliminaries with a time of 2:09.15, which broke the Olympic A limit and ensured Mattsson an Olympic place. In the Välier, Mattsson was the fourth fastest.
The 200-meter breaststroke is a feat for Mattsson. On the long track, he won World Championship bronze in 2013, Olympic bronze in the summer of 2021 from Tokyo and European Championship silver in 2022.
Swimming achievements of Finns in the long course
In addition to Mattsson, only Finnish swimmers Jani Sievinen and Antti Kasvio have won medals in the World Cup, European Championship and Olympic pool on a long track.
Sievinen and Kasvio have celebrated two medals in the long course WC pool. Kasvio won gold in the 200-meter freestyle and silver in the 400-meter freestyle in Rome in 1994. In the same Games, Sievinen won gold in the 200-meter medley and silver in the 400-meter medley.
The previous Finnish long-course World Cup gold medalist won the 100-meter freestyle in Barcelona in 2003 Hanna-Maria Hintsa (nee Seppälä).
In the long track EC pool, the gold has been won by the latest one Ari-Pekka Liukkonen, who was number one in the 50 meter freestyle in 2021.