By Sean Griffin on SwimSwam
2025 European Junior Championships
Tuesday, July 1 – Sunday, July 6 X-bionic® sphere Pool, Šamorín, Slovakia LCM (50m) Start Times – Local: Prelims – 9:30 am / Finals – 6:00 pm Start Times – EST: Prelims – 3:30 am / Finals – 12:00 pm Meet Central Entries (by event) Entries (by country) Live Results Livestream (Pay-To-Watch)While we are still about three weeks out from the swimming portion of the 2025 World Championships in Singapore, there is no shortage of championship-level meets this month. With the European U23 Championships wrapping up this past Saturday in Samorin, Slovenia, we now have the European Junior Championships set to take place in the same venue.
Samorin is a small town in western Slovakia, just southeast of the capital Bratislava. While the city has a population of under 14,000, it is home to the x-bionicsphere Olympic training center. The massive athletics complex of around 250 acres includes training facilities for 27 Olympic disciplines along with 282 hotel rooms, 4 restaurants, 2 bars, and 12 congress and conference halls.
The complex is home to a 50 meter outdoor pool and a 25 meter indoor pool. The temperature in late June and early July averages highs in the low 80s Fahrenheit (25-27 Celsius) and lows in the low 60s F (16-18 C), and is historically the wettest part of the year in the region (though it is not a particularly-rainy region to begin with).
This year’s meet represents the second-ever continental championship hosted by Slovakia after last week’s U23 meet, with 666 swimmers (308 girls and 358 boys) from 51 countries set to compete. Notably, Slovakia has not won a medal at the European Junior Championships since the 1993 dissolution of Czechoslovakia via the Velvet Revolution.
This 51st edition of the European Junior Championships features girls aged 14-17 and boys aged 15-18, with hardware and titles on the line.
Heats begin at 9:30 AM local time (3:30 AM ET), and finals begin at 6:00 PM local time (12:00 PM ET) on each of the six days of racing.
Here is a sampling of talent set to appear throughout the week (it’s not a comprehensive list):
Key Entries:
Amelie Blocksidge (Great Britain): 400 Free, 800 Free, 1500 Free Theodora Taylor (Great Britain): 50 Free, 100 Free, 100 Fly, 100 Breast Phoebe Cooper (Great Britain): 200 Free, 400 Free, 100 Fly, 200 IM Vivien Jackl (Hungary): 400 IM, 1500 Free Alessandra Mao (Italy): 50 Free, 100 Free, 200 Free Ksenia Misharina (Neutral): 200 Free, 400 Free Maria Osetrova (Neutral): 50 Fly, 50 Back Sofia Diakova (Neutral): 200 Free, 400 Free, 800 Free Kuzey Tuncelli (Turkey): 200 Free, 400 Free, 800 Free, 1500 Free Johannes Liebmann (Germany): 400 Free, 800 Free, 1500 Free, 200 Fly John Shortt (Ireland): 50 Back, 100 Back, 200 Back Mantas Kauspedas (Lithuania): 50 Back, 100 Back Georgii Iakovlev (Neutral): 50 Back, 100 Back, 200 Back Jack Brown (Great Britain): 100 Fly, 100 Free Filip Nowacki (Great Britain): 50 Breast, 100 Breast, 200 BreastThe biggest name at the meet this year is undoubtedly Turkey’s distance star Kuzey Tuncelli, who we named as our World Junior Male Swimmer of the Year in 2024. At this meet last year, he threw down a World Junior Record of 14:41.89 before lowering it to 14:41.22 at the Olympic Games less than a month later to finish 5th overall. He’ll swim his signature 1500 in addition to the 200, 400, and 800 distances.
Tuncelli isn’t only the defending European Junior champion in the 1500 but also the 800, plus he’s the senior European champion in the 1500 as well after winning that title in Serbia last summer. He’s also the reigning World Junior champion in both the 800 and 1500, and most recently won bronze in the 1500 at the Short Course World Championships in Budapest this past December.
Hungary’s Vivien Jackl is a clear headliner on the girls’ side of things. The 16-year-old has a best time of 4:34.96 from April of last year, though she’s only been able to get under 4:40 on three occasions since laying down that marker. Her best since then was 4:38.96, logged for silver at the senior European championships last June. She’s the defending junior champion from last year with a time of 4:39.28. She was 14th in Paris in 4:44.47, and her best time would have nearly medaled as it took 4:34.93 to collect bronze.
This past February, Jackl made the announcement that she would unite with Shane Tusup, the coach of Hungarian legend Katinka Hosszu, as her new coach.
Like Tuncelli, she’ll also contest the 1500, where she’s the defending senior European champion, and she was 15th in that event in Paris last summer. Those are the only two individual events that she’ll contest.
However, she’ll face stiff competition from Great Britain’s Amelie Blocksidge, who will be trying to defend her European Junior titles in both the 800 and 1500. Blocksidge’s best of 16:10.37 in the 1500 comes from last year’s European Juniors in Vilnius. While Jackl holds a faster personal best of 16:06.37, she only managed bronze at those junior championships in 16:19.22, despite having won the senior European title in her best time just two weeks earlier.
Irish 18-year-old John Shortt comes in after recently firing off a 1:56.61 Irish record in the 200 back, and he’ll line up for both the 50 and 100 distances as well. He’s the runaway favorite for gold in the 200, but the two shorter distances will be a much tougher task.
The 100 back should feature a great race between himself and Neutral Georgii Iakovlev, who owns a best of 53.65 to Shortt’s 53.90, while the clear favorites in the 50 are Iakovlev (24.55) and Lithuania’s Kauspedas Mantas (24.68), who owns a 54.46 career-best in the 100.
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