Spain returns to the Olympus of swimming. The Catalan Carles Coll (23) has been proclaimed world champion in the 200-meter breaststroke at the World Short Course Championships held in Budapest. The swimmer from Club Natació Sabadell has put together an exhibition in the Hungarian 25-meter pool and has won gold after beating Kirill Prigoda (2:01.88) and Yamato Fukasawa (2:02.01) with 2:01.55. With this, it has put an end to a decade in which the Spanish delegation did not achieve any medal in the world short course event.
The man from Tarragona has had a masterful race in which, with his record, he has achieved the eighth best mark in history in this test in a 25-meter pool. It is an unprecedented feat, since he becomes the first Spanish male champion in a short course World Cup. To date there were three champions: Melani Costa, Erika Villaécija and Mireia Belmonte.
Coll, a disciple of the Spanish breaststroke legend Sergi López, had already opened the podium possibilities in this morning’s semifinals with 2:03.63. Just a few hours later, he won the world title and lowered that same mark by two seconds, which has also translated into a new record for Spain. It is the twelfth national record he has broken in this exceptional year for him.
The Catalan started strong and from the first meters he was in medal positions. After fifty, Carles Coll saw that the reference was the Russian and favorite Prigoda, who was at world record pace. The Tarragona native took second and followed in his wake. Having reached one hundred meters, he dealt another blow and began to lead the race. With two pools left, it seemed that they were hunting him, but the fact that he squared the last turn was providential for his victory.
Coll, who leads a Spanish delegation made up of 14 swimmers and who already participated in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, has also fought for the medal in the 100 meter medley final an hour after the breaststroke milestone. The Catalan, who trains in the United States under López at the University of Virginia Tech, has been fifth in this discipline and has come close to a second medal.
To go back to the last Spanish medal in the men’s category, we must travel to the short course World Championships in Doha (Qatar) in 2010. In that event, Aschwin Wildeboer won silver and bronze in the 50 and 100 backstroke, respectively.
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