Dániel Gyurta

Who is Dániel Gyurta?

Dániel Gyurta is a Hungarian swimmer who mainly competes in the 200m breaststroke. Also known as Dani, he was only 15 years old when he won a silver medal in the men's 200m breaststroke at the 2004 Summer Olympic Games.

His coaches are Sándor Széles, Ferenc Kovácshegyi and Balázs Virth.

Gyurta, unlike his rivals Brendan Hansen and Kosuke Kitajima in the 200m breaststroke in Athens, swims a relaxed and relatively slow first 100 and sprints the second 100 meters. Hansen and Kitajima "go out hard and fast and try to hold on for comeback", but Gyurta "swims a completely different race. Goes out slowly and then comes back like a train".

On August 12, 2008 he set an Olympic record in the preliminaries of the 200m breaststroke at the 2008 Olympics Games in Beijing. His record was broken one day later by Kitajima in the semi-finals. Gyurta finished fifth in the final.

At the 2009 World Aquatics Championships he won gold medal in 200m breaststroke, edging out Eric Shanteau in the last meters. He was named Hungarian Sportsman of the year for this achievement.

Two years later Gyurta successfully retained the gold medal at the 2011 World Aquatics Championships, thus becoming only the second man to defend the world title on 200 metre breaststroke after David Wilkie of Great Britain, who won the first two world titles, in 1973 and 1975.