13th August 2022... Mark down this day as a monumental moment in the history of swimming as
young 17 year old Romanian David Popovici broke the 100m freestyle World Record that had stood
for 13 years. And in this video from Propulsion Swimming we're gonna break down and explain to you
guys just how David Popovici went a 46.86 100m freestyle. So let's get straight into it. Now,
the whole swimming world was watching for this one so for a 17 year old to come out and perform in
a final, when usually actually swimmers slip the water a little bit more when there's the pressure,
it's just astonishing that he was able to do this. Now I think the best place to start is actually
his start and his first 15m in the water. Now in no way shape or form is this his strongest part
of the race but he is absolutely no slouch. Now Kristof Milak comes up ahead of him at the 15m
mark and it does make it look like Popovici had a slow start but in fact he does the first 15m in
5.9 seconds. Now to put that into comparison, the fastest man to ever go 15m was Caeleb Dressel
in Budapest a few years ago and he went sub five seconds. So he's already 0.9 off what Dressel
can do at the start but this isn't really his strength. This isn't where the time is won - his
time is one on top of the surface, with his incredible technique. Now the first 25m he splits
a 10.39 second, and this is the shot I really want to show you guys. There's really not enough
footage of his underwater swimming so I'm going to slow this down and we can just all appreciate his
incredible catch, his high elbow swimming, it's just astonishing. So if you look his left hand
placement here is just mesmerizing. You can watch it all day. It's there - bang! In high elbow,
there's no messing around. He's already in that perfectly strong catch position just as
his hand enters the water. Honestly I could watch this all day. We talk a lot about how important
that high elbow is in swimming and you can see right here his catch is strong, really strong.
In fact I think he has one of the best distance per strokes in swimming right now. Now we're gonna
do a full breakdown of his stroke his technique in a future video but 100m freestyle for a very long
time has been all about strength and power and Popovici is very much bringing back the finesse,
the technique. And if he keeps with this stroke, this technique as he adds strength just naturally
as he gets older within the sport, remember he is just 17 years old, then this World Record really
could fall to some astonishing levels. I think we might even be looking at kind of Peaty level
dominance in this potentially. Now he splits the second 25 of that first 50 in 12.35 seconds and
the first 50 split is a 22.74. So this was really the big difference between his semi-final swim
the day before. He took it out a lot stronger to turn I think 0.2 of a second faster than he did.
Now to put that into perspective, the previous World Record marked by Cesar Cielo, he turned
in a 22.17. So even though Popovici took this out much stronger than his previous races, the
real damage to the World Record was done in the second 50m and he starts off with an incredible
turn. It's tight, the underwater leg kick, which unfortunately we don't see in this video,
is incredibly underrated. He actually has one of the better transitions from turn to swim
in swimming. And off this turn for the third 25m he goes 11.54 seconds
and he's now really powering for home. Don't know why they're showing a European Record line,
should be the World Record line - that's what we're aiming for here. And in the final 25m he
splits 12.58 seconds. So just 0.3 of a second slower than his second 25m. He produces the
second fastest back half split in history with a 24.12 - the fastest split being what he swam
the day before in a 24.05. And he wipes 0.05 of a second off a super suit World Record that had
stood for 13 years. Honestly, I thought it would take some doing to break this World Record and
this kid has done it at just the age of 17, which makes it mind-blowing. I mean there's
plenty more history from this one of course. He sets World Junior Record - good luck juniors,
that's gonna be impossible to break. He's the first man to go sub 47 seconds more than once,
and he does it in back to back days. For me this World Record was all about technique,
his incredible distance per stroke, that back end speed that he's got being that 200m racer, and
his mentality. His interview afterwards he said he does this for fun, he does it to inspire children
and he's actually targeting, would you believe, 45 seconds for 100m freestyle. Let us know in the
comment section below if you think he can get to this mark. How low do you think he can take
this World Record? Because this really is going to be just the start of David Popovici changing the
sport of swimming. So that rounds up this video from Propulsion Swimming. If you have enjoyed it
please like it, share it with your friends and family and SUBSCRIBE to the Propulsion Swimming
YouTube channel so you stay up to date with all videos we produce in the future, including a full
stroke breakdown of David Popovici's technique. But until then, I'll catch you in the next one!