Swimming: Nevo medals again at Europeans
11/25/2012 03:05
The 25- year-old finished third in the 400m IM, replicating his performance from the championships in Szczecin, Poland last year.
Swimmer Gal Nevo Photo: REUTERS
Gal Nevo enhanced his position as Israel’s most decorated swimmer this weekend,
picking up two medals at the European Short Course Swimming Championships in
Chartres, France.
After taking a bronze medal in the 200-meter individual
medley final on Thursday, the 25- year-old finished third in the 400m IM on
Friday, replicating his performance from the championships in Szczecin, Poland
last year.
Nevo, who also ended both events in 10th position at the
London Olympics, clocked a time of 4:04.80 minutes on Friday and finished behind
Hungarians Laszlo Cseh and David Verraszto for a second straight
year.
The Kibbutz Hamadia native has now got five bronze medals to his
name from the short course championships, also taking a bronze in the 400m IM in
2010.
Nevo came 49 hundredths of a second away from claiming his third
medal in Chartres on Saturday, finishing the 200m butterfly final in fifth place
in a time of 1:53.96m.
Despite Olympic finalist Yakov Toumarkin sitting
out the championships and only five Israeli swimmers racing in France, the event
will be remembered as the team’s best ever after Guy Barnea also took a silver
medal in the 50m backstroke final on Friday.
Barnea, who won a bronze in
the non-Olympic race in each of the past two European long course Championships,
improved his Israeli record three times, ultimately lowering it to 23.46 seconds
to finish in second place behind France’s Jeremy Stravius.
Barnea will
vie for another medal on Sunday after advancing to the 100m back final from
sixth place overall on Saturday in a time of 51.66s.