Kristóf Milák On Paris 2024 And His Desire To Compete At The 2028 Olympics
Double Olympic champion Kristóf Milák has given a wide-ranging interview in which he speaks about his withdrawal from the 2023 worlds, Paris 2024 and his short and long-term plans including the 2028 Olympics.
Milák hadn’t spoken to the press since the summer of 2023 when he withdrew from the World Championships in Fukuoka citing mental and physical exhaustion, saying that he’d “hit rock-bottom.”
Questions were asked of his preparations for the 2024 Olympics in Paris where again he bypassed the media after winning 100 fly gold and silver in the 200m.
l-r: Kristof Milak, Leon Marchand & Ilya Kharun: Photo Courtesy: Deepbluemedia
Now the three-time world champion has spoken to the “Palyan Kivul” podcast at the behest of his sponsor MOL, an oil and gas company, and reported in www.nemzetisport.hu.
The demands and rigours of training and competition had taken their toll on Milák until he reached breaking point ahead of Fukuoka in 2023, saying: “Mentally I wasn’t prepared, physically I was, but I had mental barriers.”
The Hungarian announced in September 2023 that he was returning to training while committing to Paris and beyond. He focused on land work, only returning to the water in early 2024 and even then he missed training sessions which subsequently affected his endurance.
He told the podcast that he’d trained alone for a few months and didn’t return to the water until around December 2023. It was, he said, “very good for my soul, it was more difficult professionally” while extolling his love of hours-long exercise and training and the knowledge of progress made.
He returned to competition with five titles at the Hungarian Championships in April last year, including the 100/200 fly double in 50.99 and 1:54.90 respectively, and followed that with fine performances on the Mare Nostrum tour.
Come Paris and the cauldron of La Defense Arena for the 200 fly. The world record-holder was 0.60 ahead at halfway before extending his lead t0 0.72 at the final turn and appeared to be on the brink of joining Michael Phelps in a two-man club of successful defences.
Leon Marchand, however, had other ideas and superb underwaters off the final turn saw him eat into the lead. With around 25m to go, Marchand moved onto his adversary’s shoulder before going ahead to accelerate into the wall 0.04 inside Milak’s Olympic record in 1:51.21 as the Hungarian touched in 1:51.75.
It condemned Milák to his first defeat over four lengths in a major international long-course meet.
“It was hard to move on, it took some time and breakfast in French bakeries, my soul needed that,” he said. “I raged to myself for a couple of hours because it could have been better. If the tactics had been different, I could have gotten closer……. I wanted to concentrate my remaining strength on those three 100 butterflies.”
Kristof Milak: Photo courtesy: European Aquatics
He returned for the 100 to take the title in 49.90, the second-fastest time of his career behind his 49.68 European record en-route to silver in Tokyo, as Josh Liendo also broke 50 in 49.99.
The 24-year-old announced in November that he was to be coached by Álmos Szabó after parting ways with his former trainer Balázs Virth.
He singled out Szabó and Secretary of State for Sports Ádám Schmidt for their support, speaking of a strong bond with the former which has already borne fruit.
As to his plans, Milák intends to compete at the 2025 worlds in Singapore and of Los Angeles 2028, he added: “I would like to be there. I won’t promise you, but I’ll do everything I can to get there.”
