Is there Swimming Beef Between Thomas Ceccon and Apostolos Christou?

Giusy Cisale contributed to this report.

Swimming might not be like many sports activities during which athletes overtly categorical their dislike for each other, lighting a bitter hearth between two athletes that appears by no means to extinguish. It’s not fairly often that swimming sees a rivalry like Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas, whose anger towards each other lasted a long time each on and off the court docket. Or Muhammad Ali calling Joe Frazier ‘stupid’ and ‘too ugly to be the champ’.

Insert Italy’s Thomas Ceccon and Greece’s Apostolos Christou, two of one of the best backstrokers within the sport in the present day. What has develop into a really tight rivalry between the 2 within the water could now have began to boil over.

In a mixed-zone interview on the just lately concluded European Championships, Ceccon mentioned he “can’t stand Apostolo,” repeatedly messing up Christou’s identify.

After being relegated to the silver medal within the 100 again, an occasion during which Ceccon is the world report holder, the Italian backstroker admitted that Christou taking him down in Paris in that occasion really aggravated him.

That wouldn’t be the tip of the confrontation. Ceccon posted a video to his Instagram story complaining in regards to the climate on his trip throughout his lone week off this 12 months, with the caption being one thing alongside the strains of “Apostolo must have sent me the storm.”

Christou responded to the video Ceccon despatched with a video of himself on the opening ceremony of the 2026 Mediterranean Games in Taranto, Italy, carrying water and pouring it from a ceremonial hydria as a part of the Games’ opening ritual, much like the Olympic torch through the Olympic Games. The video additionally had a caption, saying that he was “breaking the spell. No more bad weather for Thomas Ceccon. Enjoy the rest of your vacation.”

Several Italian swimmers who competed on the European Championships in Paris are competing this week of their residence nation, although a notable identify lacking is Ceccon. However, he was not chosen to compete, because the occasion is taken into account one thing alongside the strains of a ‘second-tier event’, which can be the place a few of this back-and-forth between the 2 skills has come from.

In a sport akin to swimming, a giant rivalry isn’t a foul factor, because it has helped gas among the largest moments in historical past, purely out of not wanting another person, particularly somebody that you’re not probably the most keen on, to beat you.

We have seen this on a number of events, akin to Lilly King giving Russia’s Yulia Efimova the now-iconic finger wave within the prepared room on the 2016 Rio Olympics through the semifinals of the 100 breaststroke, a race during which King later defeated Efimova to win gold.

Another instance will be seen in 2024, the place the United States and Australia have been locked in a heated feud within the pool for a number of years, used that motivation to organize for the Paris Olympics, with the US group exhibiting it’s athletes a number of Australian athletes and media personalities ideas on the US, which led to the notorious cowbells that group USA and it’s followers would take with them to the Olympics.

Much of this so-called “beef” between Ceccon and Christou is speculative, although to see it between two of Europe’s high skills makes for some intriguing storytelling as we inch nearer to the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, and what’s positive to be many extra head-to-head battles between the 2 within the water earlier than then.