"I can hardly believe this happened"

“It’s almost unimaginable and you have to pinch yourself in the arm. I can hardly believe this happened, I had been waiting so long for this. At some point you wouldn’t have expected to be 29 years old at a grand prix for the first time,” Ant­on Sveinn McKee told Morgunblaðið yesterday.

Silver medal

On Saturday, he achieved the impressive win of the silver medal in the 200 metres breaststroke at the 2023 European Short Course Swimming Championships in the 25 metre pool in Otopeni, Romania, just 33/100 second behind Casp­ar Cor­beau of the Netherlands, who claimed the European championship after a strong finish. They were swimming at 2:02,41 and 2:02,74 seconds, while Arno Kamm­inga of the Netherlands, the silver medallist at the last Olympic Games, had to accept the bronze at 2:03,32.

Focus on the next 25 metres

McKee said he had a good feeling about the swim from the beginning. “I could feel right away that I was able to reach my speed without putting too much effort into it. That way I knew I had enough on the tank for the second half of the swim and it would all work out. The thing is that the more you manage to swim your swim, according to your own emphasis, the better the result, rather than the opposite and you have to do something ridiculous to achieve success. The focus was always the next 25 metres, or just the next bound.”

McKee said that the coach Eyleifur Jóhannesson had planned the final swim well.