By Sam Blacker on SwimSwam
2026 European Swimming Championships
August 10-16, 2026 Paris, France – Olympic Aquatics Centre LCM (50 Meters) Meet Information Meet Central Entries Results Live Results SwimSwam Preview Index Live Stream Recaps: Prelims: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 Finals: Day 1 | Day 2DAY 3 FINALS START LIST
Day 3 Finals Schedule
Women’s 200 Freestyle Semi-finals Men’s 200 Backstroke Final Women’s 50 Butterfly Final Men’s 100 Freestyle Final Women’s 100 Breaststroke Final Men’s 200 Breaststroke Semi-finals Women’s 50 Backstroke Semi-finals Men’s 100 Butterfly Semi-finals Women’s 400 IM Final Men’s 800 Freestyle Final Women’s 4×100 Freestyle Relay FinalWe have 11 races in tonight’s finals session, seven of which are finals. Fan favorites Maxime Grousset and Marie Wattel will be back in the pool for the third night in a row, while Marrit Sttenbergen will have three races tonight.
Five Swimmers To Watch
Irene Ciercoles Galve (ESP) – Women’s 50 Backstroke Semi-finals, Women’s 4×100 Freestyle Relay Final Ieva Jurkunaite (LTU) – Women’s 200 Freestyle Semi-finals Jan Cejka (CZE) – Men’s 200 Backstroke Final Jere Hribar (CRO) – Men’s 100 Freestyle Final Dimitrios Markos (GRE) – Men’s 800 Freestyle FinalWomen’s 200 Freestyle Semi-finals
We had a relatively sleepy prelims in the women’s 200 free, with a time of 1:59.19 making it back for the final. Barbara Seemanova looked supremely comfortable as she took top spot in 1:57.10, just over a second off her season best of 1:55.99, although we should expect Freya Colbert (1:58.66) and Marrit Steenbergen (1:58.00) to be faster tonight.
Ieva Jurkinaitė (1:57.36) hacked more than a second off the Lithuanian record of 1:58.63 she set in April in the heats and is the #2 seed. She is still just 16 years old and has a great chance to consolidate her morning’s effort into a senior international final here.
Sarah Dumont (1:58.40), Bianca Nannucci (1:58.62), and European junior champion Linda Roth (1:57.60) will all have designs on the final as well, and Francisca Soares Martins (1:58.56) has already lowered her Portuguese record to 1:57.80 on the leadoff leg of the women’s 4×200 free relay on day 1.
Nikolett Padar will also be one to keep an eye on in lane 7 of the first semi-final. She was 1:58.81 this morning but clocked 1:56.03 to win gold at the European U23 Championships last summer.
Men’s 200 Backstroke Final
Hubert Kos sliced nearly a second off his European record in the semi-finals last night as he posted the #2 performance in history at 1:52.30 and is the heavy favorite to win his first European title in this event. We should be on world record watch once again, after he blasted out more than a second under WR pace at the halfway point yesterday.
Jan Cejka set a new Czech record of 1:54.40, with 2023 World Championships bronze medalist Roman Mityukov joining him under 1:55 with a 1:54.85 yesterday. Apostolos Siskos, the defending European champion, is the #2 seed in 1:54.06.
Hugo Gonzalez (1:55.75), the 2024 world champion, and 100 back world record holder Thomas Ceccon (1:55.86) will be in the outside lanes of a stacked final, with seven of the eight swimmers here being national record holders. The only exception is Switzerland’s Flavio Bucca (1:55.73), who joins his compatriot Mityukov in the final tonight.
Women’s 50 Butterfly Final
Sarah Sjöström (25.12) is the top seed by three tenths of a second, seeking her sixth European title in this event after wins in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2022. She missed last season while pregnant, but is still the class of the field 12 months on.
Russian record holder Arina Surkova has never won an individual European Championships medal but is the #2 seed here in 25.44, 0.01 seconds ahead of 2025 World Championships bronze medalist Roos Vanotterdijk, who will also swim the 50 back semi-finals later in the session.
Sara Junevik (25.61) is the defending champion and was just a tenth off her best of 25.50 last night, while Italian record holder Silvia Di Pietro (25.76), Slovakian record holder Tamara Potocka (25.83), and German record holder Angelina Kohler (25.85) will be dangerous from outside lanes.
Men’s 100 Freestyle Final
David Popovici (46.72) swam the fourth-fastest time in history last night, and is one of six national record holders in tonight’s final. The Romanian won the World Championship title last year in 46.51, which stands as the European record, and looked supreme in his semi-finals swim. He is seeking his third European title in a row after winning in 2022 (46.86) and 2024 (46.88).
Egor Kornev (47.27) was three tenths off the 46.96 Russian record he swam two months ago, but is still the #3 seed. Luka Hoek le Guenedal (47.26) hacked half a second off his Spanish record yesterday and has dropped from 48.06 to 47.26 this season.
Nandor Nemeth (47.44) and Kristof Milak (47.97) are both in the final for Hungary, with the former shaving 0.03 seconds off the latter’s national record in the semi-finals. Lithuania’s Tomas Navikonis (47.91) set a big lifetime best yesterday, while Jere Hribar (48.04) set a Croatian record of 47.80 in the heats.
Carlos D’Ambrosio is the eighth swimmer in a field where the medalists, with the exception of gold, could come from anywhere. The Italian sliced four tenths off his national record in the 200 free on day 1, and shaved 0.03 seconds off his lifetime best with a 47.70 in the semi-finals.
Women’s 100 Breaststroke Final
Angharad Evans has lowered the Championship record in both the heats and semis, clocking 1:05.45 and 1:04.97, and is the prohibitive favorite ahead of Mona McSharry (1:05.64) and Eneli Jefimova (1:05.78). Evans won Commonwealth Games gold last month and has six swims under 1:05.50 this season, and roared home in 33.79 to win her semi-final yesterday.
McSharry, the 2024 Olympic bronze medalist, was just off her Irish record of 1:05.51, while Jefimova undercut her Estonian record by 0.03 seconds. Benedetta Pilato was the final and 2025 world champion Anna Elendt (1:05.92) are also entered under 1:06, significantly faster than the 1:06.41 Jefimova swam for gold two years ago.
Men’s 200 Breaststroke Semi-finals
Kirill Prigoda (2:09.33) was the fastest man in this morning’s heats, as only four men broke 2:10. Commonwealth Games champion Filip Nowacki (2:09.47), who won both the European junior title and the World junior title last summer, will be in lane 4 in the first of the semi-finals and had the best splitting of any of the top four this morning.
Caspar Corbeau (2:09.66) and Prigoda’s teammate Aleksandr Zhigalov (2:09.84) were the other two sub-2:10 swimmers, with Ireland’s Jack Kelly (2:10.14) and Great Britain’s Greg Butler (2:10.44) just on the other side.
Luka Mladenovic, the European U23 champion, was half a second off his best in 2:10.53 and could be one to watch, as could 2026 European junior champion Doruk Yoğurtçuoğlu (2:11.20) and Finland’s Tokyo Olympic bronze medalist Matti Matson (2:11.10).
Women’s 50 Backstroke Semi-finals
Sara Curtis vindicated her favorite status in the heats, as the newly-minted European record holder was the fastest woman this morning in 27.31. She has less than a tenth of a second ahead of Mary-Ambre Moluh (27.39), who broke the European record on the 100 back last night, and those two should progress comfortably through to tomorrow’s final.
Marrit Steenbergen will have a triple tonight with the 200 free, this event, and the women’s 4×100 free relay. She was third this morning in 27.61, two tenths of a second off her lifetime best of 27.40.
Moluh’s teammate Analia Pigree (27.61) and Russian record holder Alina Gaifutdinova (27.61) matched Steenbergen this morning, with 2023 World Championships bronze medalist Lauren Cox (27.97) more than eight tenths of a second off her lifetime best of 27.15. She may struggle to make the final.
Irene Ciercoles Galve (27.81) was just a tenth of a second off the Spanish record this morning, and has looked in fantastic form on the relays. Ingeborg Loyning, who is married to 2016 Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers, will swim in the first semi-final after progressing 15th in 28.46, four tenths of a second off her Norwegian record of 28.05 from 2021.
Men’s 100 Butterfly Semi-finals
Noe Ponti recovered from finishing 8th in the 50 fly final to top the heats in the 100 fly this morning, posting a season best of 50.47 as one of two men under 51 seconds. The other was Hungary’s Olympic champion Kristof Milak (50.81), with world champion Maxime Grousset 3rd this morning in 51.03.
Ed Mildred bounced back from a below-par Commonwealth Games with a 51.18 to progress 4th, while NAB’s 2019 World Championships silver medalist Andrei Minakov was 51.78 this morning for 10th. Hubert Kos, who swam the #2 time in history in the 200 back last night, was 51.49 for 8th.
Grousset, Ponti, and Milak are the favorites for tomorrow’s final and will want to be in the centre lanes, so we could see some big swims in the second semi-final from Grousset and Ponti as they aim to claim lane 4.
Women’s 400 IM Final
With only 14 swimmers in the heats this morning the times were relatively subdued, but we had a trio of 4:40s to claim the centre of the pool for tonight. European U23 champion Justina Kozan was the fastest woman this evening at 4:40.47, using a field-best 1:02.29 freestyle leg to run down Amalie Smith (4:40.56) and Vivien Jackl (4:40.71) in the second heat this morning.
Smith and Jackl went 1-2 at the European Junior Championships last month, where Smith set a new European Junior record. She lowered that to 4:33.70 at the Commonwealth Games last month, and will have a huge breaststroke leg tonight. She was four seconds faster in 1:17.99 than both Kozan (1:21.93) and Jackl (1:24.52) were on that split in the heats.
Ellen Walshe lurks dangerously in lane 7, the Irish record holder and 2025 European short course champion clocking a 4:41.76 to miss her Irish record of 4:35.32 by more than six seconds this morning. Anastasia Gorbenko (4:42.23), who won the European Championships two years ago, is in lane 1.
Men’s 800 Freestyle Final
European record holder Johannes Liebmann (7:41.87) and Hungarian record holder Zalan Sarkany (7:42.34) are top two seeds, with 2024 Olympic champion and former European record holder Dan Wiffen (7:44.86) in lane 3. Liebmann rocketed out to a 3:47 opening 400 in the heats and is the favorite, but Wiffen looks in his best form since winning that Olympic title two years ago in Paris.
Liebmann’s teammate Sven Schwarz (7:46.93) won silver at the World Championships last year, while Greece’s Dimitrios Markos (7:47.26) has two national records from two swims so far after setting a Greek record in the heats and hacking more than a second off his 200 free record while leading off the men’s 4×200 free relay on day 1.
Women’s 4×100 Freestyle Relay Final
Neutral Athletes B (3:36.61) are the top seeds for this final but the Netherlands (3:36.84) got a 52.71 anchor from Milou van Wijk this morning and will bring in World record holder Marrit Steenbergen. France (3:37.05) has a pair of individual finalists in Beryl Gastaldello and Marie Wattel, with those three nations the fastest three in the heats.
Hungary (3:37.31) are the only other nation that was under 3:38 this morning, with Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and Spain in the outside lanes. Sara Curtis could be key for Italy out of lane 1 if they are to make it onto the podium
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