2011 IPC Swimming European Championships

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Swimmers line-up to race during the IPC 2011 Swimming European Championship in Berlin

ⒸEberhard Thonfeld

Swimmers line-up to race during the IPC 2011 Swimming European Championship in Berlin © • Eberhard Thonfeld

The 2011 IPC Swimming European Championships in Berlin, Germany were the largest ever with more than 440 swimmers from 36 countries taking part.

During eight days of highly competitive competition 59 European records were broken, 31 of which were world records.

The tone for the Championships was set during the fifth race on the first day when Great Britain’s Jonathan Fox set a new world record in the Men’s 400m Freestyle S7.

One of the most memorable events during the Championships was the Women’s 100m Breaststroke SB4. During the heats Ukraine’s Natalia Prologaieva (1:49.91) and Norway’s Sarah Louise Rung (1:49.33) traded world records, before Rung, the original record holder, set an even faster time (1:49.17) in the final to eventually take gold.

Arguably the star performer of the week was Ukraine’s Yevheniy Bohodayko who left the German capital with eight gold and two silver medals. He also broke the world record in the 100m Breaststroke SB6, and set new European records in the Men's 50m Freestyle S6 and Men's 50m Butterfly S6.

His haul of 10 medals helped Ukraine top the overall medal table. In total his country took home 41 gold, 37 silver and 28 bronze medals.

The growth in swimming talent across Europe was underlined by the fact that 31 out of the 36 countries that took part won at least one medal.

In addition to 90 media covering the event, the most ever for a regional Swimming Championships, the event was broadcast live via www.youtube.com/paralympicsporttv. This gave billions of people around the world the opportunity to tune in on either their computer or mobile phone to watch the action.

Judging by the number of tweets on @paralympic, the IPC’s official twitter account, people all over the world were tuning in, including fans in Australia, USA, Japan, Mauritius, Brazil and Canada.

One thing that Berlin did show is that the action in the Aquatics Centre will be one of the must have tickets for London 2012.

For all the results from Berlin please click on the results book in related documents.

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Caption

David Smetanine stands with his silver medal at the 2011 IPC Swimming European Championships in Berlin, Germany.

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