Nowacki Teenage swimming star Filip Nowacki says clinching his maiden senior European Championship is an "extremely meaningful moment". The 18-year-old Jersey man, world junior champion, earned gold in the 200m breaststroke in Paris – his first ever for a Channel Island at that level, too. 

That came just over a fortnight after another senior success as he sealed Commonwealth Games gold for Jersey in the same event in Glasgow.

"It was a very meaningful experience, to win my first European title after winning a Commonwealth Games title is really special."

Nowacki finished sixth in the 100m breast earlier in the week, 0.01 seconds behind another Briton, Adam Ramsay-Peaty – the result swapped from the Commonwealth Games, where the Jersey man nipped the record-holder at the post to silver. And in his longer race of the week, Nowacki came back from a poor first half to take the event. 

He was sixth at 100m and second behind Dutchman Caspar Corbeau at 150m – but stormed through the field to triumph in 2.07.70, just 0.08 clear of Olympic bronze-medallist Corbeau. "I knew the lads were going to take it out very fast and my strength is almost bringing it back.

"But I had to make sure that I was within fighting distance with 100 to go and with 50 to go, but I could sense Caspar was pulling away at every wall so I was almost playing catch up every single length."

Written by

Lakshya