Matti Mattsson opened the European Swimming Championships in Rome in his side event. Even though he didn’t get a place in the final, he still got the best EC ranking of his career in 100 meters.
Antti Sahlström,
Anu Karttunen
The EC final was a dream For Matti Mattsson in his minor event in the 100m breaststroke, when he finished sixth in his semi-final and was 11th overall. Pori would have liked to have swum in the final, but on the other hand, he now had a day off on Friday before his main trip on Saturday, the 200-meter breaststroke.
– It would have been great to reach the EC final even with a hundred, there are not any of them in the poster yet. On the other hand, now I can compare a bit tomorrow and get places open towards Saturday, Mattsson said.
Mattsson thought that his time would have been even harder than 1:00.64, but he was still satisfied with both his time and his ranking. He missed out on the final by just 0.4 seconds, with the last final spot taken by the defending bronze medalist, Great Britain James Wilby.
– This was definitely a better bet than in the morning. Now those parts work as I wanted. I got 4 hundredths off the time and my only goal was to swim harder in the evening – and now it got harder, Mattsson stated.
– I’m quite satisfied, especially when it got better in the morning, the cards were removed from the machine. Now there were really a lot more bets, which is part of our 200 meter frequency. I never count the bets, but there were quite a few more of them.
Sports expert Vesa Gloves in his opinion, Mattsson’s swimming also started a little too quietly in the semi-final, but in his opinion, the most important thing was that Mattsson himself was satisfied with his performance.
– This was his best ranking in the 100 meters at the EC level. The swim was very similar to the morning. There was such a little biting, and that sliding, good swimming was missing. I have to remember that 200 meters is his main distance and this is such a nice start. Everything that comes along here is only a plus, Hanski said.
The preliminaries of the 200-meter breaststroke swim on Saturday from 10:45 a.m.