site.btaPetar Mitsin Places Seventh in Singapore after Becoming Fifth Bulgarian Swimmer Ever to Reach World Championship Men’s Finals

Bulgarian swimmer Petar Mitsin came in seventh in the men’s 400m freestyle final at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore on Sunday.

The 19-year-old took the distance in 3:45.28 minutes, just a little slower than his showing in the heats earlier in the day, when he finished fourth in his heat.

In the final, Mitsin got off to a strong start and was in third position by the middle of the distance but later failed to keep pace and finished seventh.

Germany’s Lukas Maertens, the gold medallist in the 400m freestyle at last year's Paris Olympics and the event's world record holder, won on Sunday in 3:42.35 min. Australia’s Samuel Short, world champion at Fukuoka 2023, claimed silver with a time of 3:42.37 min, and South Korea's Woomin Kim, world champion at Doha 2024 and Olympic bronze medallist at the Paris Games in 2024, grabbed bronze in 3:42.60 min.

Mitsin is only the fifth Bulgarian to reach an individual men’s final in a long-course (50m) swimming pool during world championships. His seventh place in Singapore on Sunday is the second-highest achievement after Denislav Kalchev’s sixth position at 100m butterfly in Rome in 1994.

The other Bulgarian men finalists at world championships were Mihail Alexandrov (100m breaststroke, Melbourne 2007), Antani Ivanov (200m butterfly, Budapest 2017) and Josif Miladinov (100m butterfly, Doha 2024).