48 hours after he had finished only 24th as a medal candidate in the 400 m freestyle due to physical problems, and the day after he had to forego competing in the 200 m freestyle due to illness, he finished 13th in the 800 m freestyle in 7:48.49 minutes.
That wasn’t enough to advance to the final of the top eight on Tuesday, but that wasn’t the main focus for Auböck. The fact that he came within 3.17 seconds of his national record set in April 2022 after the immediate incident can be seen as a success. “Emotionally, I’m very happy that I swam this race because it wasn’t that bad,” said Auböck. “The fact that I was able to swim in this pool again in this atmosphere was something special.”
“Noticed that there were still problems”
From his point of view, the race “started quite well, but I noticed in the second half – I wanted to swim a bit faster – that there were still problems.” He was very satisfied with the first half of the race. In the end, he managed to win the race. “That was something special.” The ÖOC athlete was 3.90 seconds short of the final. “I’m pretty tired,” Auböck admitted after the race. “Because of the strain of the race and because I was ill, that’s twice as bad now.” But the illness has now been overcome.
He was given medical care around the clock, had several corona tests done and had only been in bed. He soon realized that he would not be able to run the 200m race. He had set himself a limit for Sunday evening, and a light swim training session that he then completed gave him the starting signal for the 800m competition. In the end, a mild viral infection threw him off track. “I had a slight fever, headache and sore throat.”
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Auböck felt he was in medal shape after arriving in Paris last Tuesday. “I had an incredible training session here on Wednesday evening, the times were right. Thursday was a normal day and on Friday morning I didn’t feel bad, but suddenly the training times didn’t match up anymore,” the former world champion recalled.
Accepting the physical setback was difficult. “I tried to suppress it as quickly as possible. But you work for three years towards that one day. The week before, I thought I could manage a medal – the way I was, it shouldn’t be a problem at all.” He would have believed he could manage the 3:42.40 minutes of the third-placed 400m runner. “But then it was all gone within 24 hours. And the next chance wasn’t for another four years. You can’t really think about it.”
Now Auböck still has the open water race on August 9th over 10 km to take part in, in which he is only allowed to start because he has already competed in the 800 m. “The good thing is that there is still time until then. I will know in the course of the next few days whether I will swim or not.” In the open water it is all about endurance, and he wants to make good use of this in the next few days. “Simply get back into good shape aerobically. Then I will have mastered most of my task.” The advantage is that the race pace is even slower than over 800 and of course 400 m.
Whether it will be 800 m or 10 km – Auböck couldn’t say whether it will be his last Olympic race. “I don’t know whether I’ll be swimming competitively in four years. That’s a pretty long time. I’m not getting any younger – I’m already pretty much the oldest in the field. It could be, but I haven’t decided yet. Because on the one hand I really enjoy it. But I should only swim as long as it still makes sense.”
