At the age of 15, Jackl Vivien is Hungary’s newest Olympic medal contender.
With this bombastic title, Craig Lord, the most authoritative writer in swimming sports, starts his latest article on his blog called The Vortex. And if the opinion leader of The Times, whose opinion is valued all over the world, thinks so, then we have to accept it as well.
As is known, Jackl Vivien, a 15-year-old, 9th-grade swimmer from Tatabányai Vízmű SE, swam within four seconds of the Olympic level on the third day of the 126th national championship with an impressive personal best of 4:34.96 seconds, of course he won and made it to Paris, defying such megastars as himself behind, like the world champion Boglárka Kapás, the European champion Viktória Mihályvári-Farkas and the three-time Olympic and nine-time world champion legend, Katinka Hosszú. Not incidentally, he achieved the second best time result in the world this year!
swimswam.com, a website considered standard in the sport, trumpeted Jackl’s result with this headline:
15-year-old Jackl Vivien’s time of 4:34.96 in the 400 m medley is a junior European record!
Then in the article, the author, Retta Race, lists the details. First, let’s find out the partial times:
100 back: 1:02.98 p
100 m butterfly: 1:07.22 p
100 m mell: 1:22.51 p
100 m fast: 1:02.36 p
The time of 4:34.96 minutes is an improvement of almost six seconds compared to Jackl’s previous personal best, 4:40.66, and means not only breaking all existing Hungarian records for age groups, but also a junior European record! The old record was held by the Spanish Alba Vázquez Ruíz with 4:38.53 minutes since 2019, and the excellent student of the ninth grade of the Bárdos László Gimnázium in Tatabánya cut almost four seconds off that time.
With his current time, Jackl is third in the Hungarian all-time ranking, which is led by Katinka Hosszú with her previous world record:
With this time, Jackl is second in the 2024 world rankings behind Great Britain’s Freya Colbert, who swam her time of 4:34.01 a week ago.
So far the swimswam.com article, then let’s see what Craig Lord wrote on his blog The Vortex:
“Jackl Vivien wasn’t even born when Katinka Hosszú already had two Olympics behind her, but now the 15-year-old girl signed up for the 400-meter medley swimming Olympic podium in Paris.
Jackl, a TVSE (Tatabányai Vízmű SE) competitor, by the time they got to the breaststroke, was already three seconds ahead of Boglárka Kapás, and she added another second on top of that in the fast track, achieving her sensational time of 4:34.96 minutes, which is a huge personal best. . His best so far in the 400 medley was 4:40.66, which he swam at the Youth European Championships in Belgrade last July.
Jackl’s current result is the latest proof of the teenager’s dizzying development, with which he followed in the footsteps of the five-time Olympic champion Krisztina Egerszegi. In addition to his four Olympic gold medals in backstroke, Egerszegi also won the 400 medley at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Lord points out.
On Thursday evening, we reached Jackl Vivien at her home in Tatabánya, who finally called us back herself, often freeing herself.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t hire him earlier because I was busy with the doping control – he explained, even though he shouldn’t have. – Actually, I still can’t believe this time starting with 4:34, I expected 4:36-4:37 at most.
The 15-year-old excellent high school student revealed that she has been through very hard training sessions with Márta Sirokiné Kocsis, the coach who has guided her student’s career from the beginning.
(At this point, we should note that Márta Kocsis already predicted that Vivien would be at the Paris Olympics last September, when Index Tatabánya made a report on the 15-year-old talent.)
We had a training camp in Tenerife, and then in the days before the national championship, we practiced in Zalaegerszeg, according to the well-proven recipe, Vivien added.
The young champion is very much preparing for the European adult championship in Belgrade in June, where she would continue to carve out her current time, and of course for the Paris Olympics, about which she spoke very modestly.
My main competition this year is July 2-7. between the junior European championships in Vilnius, I have to perform well there. The Olympics is just a bonus, of course I will try to give the best of my skills there as well.
All that is needed is that if this is successful, that is, to give the best of one’s skills, it may even be enough for an Olympic medal.
(Cover photo: Jackl Vivien on September 14, 2023. Photo: Péter Papajcsik / Index)
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