2026 Romanian National Championships: Popovici Hits 3 50 Free Time Of Career ...Middle East

By Retta Race on SwimSwam

2026 ROMANIAN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

The 2026 Romanian National Championships got underway from Otopeni today, with the competition spanning a potentially exciting five days.

21-year-old Olympic champion David Popovici is among the top-tier of athletes racing this week, with the phenom taking on the men’s 50m freestyle to kick off his campaign.

After posting a solid morning swim of 22.11 to capture the top seed out of the heats, Popovici sliced off another .09 to check in with a gold medal-worthy effort of 22.02 this evening.

That got him to the wall in a comfortable advantage over Patrick Dina, relegated to silver in 22.33, and Mihai Gergely, who rounded out the podium in 22.69.

As for Popovici, the ace’s 22.02 outing here ties his 3rd-best ever performance, with his resume boasting a lifetime best of 21.83 from taking the title at last year’s edition of these championships. He now ranks just outside the list of top 25 performers worldwide on the season.

David Popovici‘s Top 5 LCM 50 Freestyle Performances

In other men’s races, we reported how 18-year-old Robert Badea put up an explosive new lifetime best of 1:58.86 in the 200m IM to establish the first sub-1:59 result of his career. You can read more about his Romanian record-setting outing here.

On the women’s side of the house, Theodora Dimitru logged a time of 25.63 to lead a trio of athletes under the 26-second barrier in the 50m freestyle.

The 16-year-old held off Irina Preda, who settled for silver in 25.77, followed by Andreea Comna who touched in 25.84 for bronze.

Daira Silisteanu earned a new Romanian national record en route to winning the women’s 100m back.

She posted 59.63, her first time ever under the minute mark, crushing her former lifetime best of 1:00.02 from the 2025 Romanian National Championships, which stood as the former national record.

Silisteanu opened in 29.45 and closed in 30.18 to erase the former Romanian benchmark and grab the gold tonight.

Behind her was Aissia Preisecariu who nailed 1:00.92 as runner-up, with Ana Rozorea bagging the bronze in 1:03.09.

Read the full story on SwimSwam: 2026 Romanian National Championships: Popovici Hits #3 50 Free Time Of Career

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