The 2026 European Swimming Championships are underway in Paris, France, with the seventh day of preliminaries featuring six events. The women's 400m freestyle heats saw a tale of two heats, with the first circle-seeded heat looking a little sleepy and the second, driven by three German swimmers fighting for two spots in the final, being much faster. The top seeds in this event are Maya Werner (Germany) with a new lifetime best of 4:05.40, Isabel Gose (Germany) at 4:06.37, and Linda Roth (Germany) at 4:08.71.
In the men's 400m freestyle heats, the top seeds are Oliver Klemet (Germany) at 3:45.22, Oliver Papai (Hungary) at 3:45.32, and Lucas Henveaux (Belgium) at 3:45.78. The women's medley relay should see some great battles, with Great Britain hoping for a central lane tonight after some reasonably strong performances in the stroke 100s. The Netherlands won't swim Marrit Steenbergen this morning but have a strong quartet, while Neutral Athletes B were the top European nations at the World Championships last summer.
The men's medley relay will see Italy swimming as one of just three teams, hoping to avoid the fate that befell the men's 4x100 free team, which missed the final. Neutral Athletes B are defending world champions, but looked vulnerable in the mixed medley relay, and potential backstroke leg Kliment Kolesnikov missed the 100 backstroke semi-finals. Great Britain could be a wildcard, and France will have tremendous home backing having won bronze at the Paris Olympics two years ago then silver in Singapore last summer.
The combined classification women's 50 free and men's 100 free events will feature top seeds Alexander Hillhouse (men's 50) and Defne Kurt (women's 100). Our final event is an unusual one, as we have a swim-off for first reserve for the women's 50 breast final. Kotryna Teterevkoca and Ralina Giliazova tied for 9th last night in 30.55, and then tied again in a swim-off at the end of the night in 30.43. We will see if a second swim-off can separate the pair.
