Santucci Sprints To 2017 Blocks Before Early Tests For Peaty, Koch, Cseh & Lacourt

And so it begins. Post-Olympic World-Championships season dawns with race plans well in place across the world of elite swimming. This weekend brings the first tests of the year for Italian sprinter Michele Santucci; a week later the USA Pro-Swim series gets underway in Austin (13th to 15th), while January is set to end with a first 2017 glimpse of Adam Peaty, Marco Koch, Laszlo Cseh and Camille Lacourt in action at the Euro Meet in Luxembourg, on the 27th to 29th.

Italy is never far off the pace on sprint freestyle and the 4x100m freestyle. Santucci, who trains at Larus di Rossetto with Luca Dotto, will be the first of his nation’s sprinters to test pace this year when he takes to his blocks at the Trofeo dell’Epifania di Cortona in Umbria on January 6-7, Gazzetta dello Sport notes today.

Marco Koch, having fun on the podium with Laurent Carnol and Arkady Grigoryev at the 2016 Euro Meet

The breaststroke races at the Euro Meet will feature an intriguing clash of Britain’s Olympic 100m champion Peaty and Germany’s 200m World champion Koch, who after his victory at the world s/c titles before Christmas was voted Germany’s Sportsman of the Month. The “Sportsman of the Month” is voted on by around 3,800 German athletes sponsored by the German Sports Aid body in conjunction with the national Olympic committee’s athletes’ commission.

If Koch should meet Peaty and beat him in the 200m this month, no great shakes. The other way round would turn heads, of course. A little early to tell where the tale is going. The challengers are among those who thought a sub-2:07 day might dawn in 2016. It didn’t. In Rio, Peaty confirmed that he wanted to “give the 200m a real go on the way to Tokyo [2020]”. He’s got a 2:08 on his books but watched a blanket 2:07s Olympic final won by Dimitry Balandin (KAZ) in Rio just 0.06sec ahead of Josh Prenot (USA) and concluded:

“That race has got a long way …

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