How Fast was David Popovici's First Meet of 2026?

Last summer during the 2025 swimming world championships David Popovici turned a LOT of heads. He came home with two gold medals reclaiming his world titles in both the 100 and 200 freestyles while dropping a BLISTERINGLY fast 46.51 in that 100. Popovici was already one of THE swimmers to watch in the world of swimming before but that performance certainly helped to maintain that level of notoriety. Now for the 2026 season we’ve gotten to see Popovici hit the water for the first time and the results looked pretty good, but maybe even more interesting is that Popovici seemed VERY excited by them as well.