Luxembourg Swimmers Secure New Personal Bests in Italy, USA

From 21 to 23 June 2019, Luxembourg swimming trio Raphael Stacchiotti, Pit Brandenburger and Monique Olivier tested their form at the Sette Colli Meet in Rome, whilst Julie Meynen competed in front of a home crowd in Auburn, Alabama (USA).

For his part, Raphael Stacchiotti improved his personal best (secured a year ago at the same place) in the 50m breaststroke event in Rome by eleven hundredths of a second in 29.25 seconds. The 100m backstroke similarly went well with the 27-year-old setting a new season best with 56.94 seconds. At the end of the weekend, the Ettelbrücker competed in the finals over the 200m positions, in which he placed sixth with a time of 2:01.45 minutes. This represented an improvement of 3.8 tenths compared to the Open de France.

Similarly, Pit Brandenburger showed significant performance improvements compared to the Open de France at the beginning of the week. In Rome, the 23-year-old finished the 100m freestyle race in 51.79 seconds, the 200m freestyle race in 1: 52.14 minutes and the 400m freestyle race in 4:01.52 minutes.

For her part, Monique Olivier finished the 100m freestyle race in 58.04 seconds, exactly six tenths more than her best time of 57.44 seconds, recorded at the Bergen Swim Festival in April. At twice the distance, she reached the finish line in 2:03.00 minutes and was only 1.13 seconds below her national record of 2:01.87 minutes.

Last but not least, Luxembourg's fastest swimmer Julie Meynen once again demonstrated her current top form at the "Richard Quick Invitational Meet" in her adopted hometown of Auburn. Over the 50m freestyle the 21-year-old fine-tuned her best time to 25.00 seconds, which was eight hundredths of her time in the Pro Swim Meeting in Clovis a week ago. In the 50m butterfly race, Julie Meynen set a new country record time of 27.66 seconds, replacing the old record of 27.85 seconds set in 2012.