The Rijeka swimmer competes in the 50m breaststroke at the European Championships on Saturday. After months out of the pool and battling injury, she hopes to make a step up from her previous major championship performances.
Croatian swimmer Meri Mataja will dive into the pool at the European Championships in Paris on Saturday with a clear goal: a spot in the semifinals of the 50m breaststroke. Representing Kantrida and one of two Croatian entrants in the French capital, alongside Amina Kajtaz Pinjo, she enters her main event after a turbulent season marked by a shoulder injury that kept her away from competitive swimming for months.
The road to Paris has been anything but easy. Shoulder problems began last autumn, and Mataja says she felt them continuously. "I felt the pain last autumn; I could still swim, so I took it upon myself to compete at the Croatian Championships and the European Short Course Championships," she told Novi list.
What followed was an almost complete break. In January, she barely entered the pool for the entire month, and her return was gradual-from walking in the water and gym work to the dreaded stationary bike. "The bike was my biggest enemy," she admitted. She only started swimming again in mid-April. Her first race of the season in early May produced a time of 33 seconds, which, as she says, sent her into a panic.
Still, her form began to improve. At the Golden Bear meet, she swam her fastest race of the season-31.43 seconds, just 56 hundredths off her absolute Croatian record set last year. At the Croatian Championships in Zagreb, she won with a time of 31.58 seconds, while finishing fourth in the 100m (1:11.58), which didn't faze her at all.
"That fourth place didn't shake me at all. I swam 1:11, and I wasn't fourth because I swam 1:12 or 1:13, but because the times were really fast," Mataja explained. She noted that for bronze at the Croatian Championships, you never needed to swim 1:10, and the girls who beat her were juniors who had peaked for that meet, while for her, that race served as training.
She is aware that the competition in Paris will be much stronger than at the previous European Championships. "The European Championships in Belgrade were quite weak, given the lack of depth in the results. I think it will be much harder now; you need a lot of luck when it comes to hundredths," said Mataja, who two years ago in Belgrade was ninth in the semifinals, and four years earlier in Rome got stuck in the heats.
Despite everything, she remains optimistic. "Given everything I've been through this season, I'm hoping for the semifinals, and I'd be satisfied with that. Actually, I'm more looking forward to the result than the placement because I can influence my result, but it all depends on how others swim." She added that her shoulder, although still with some limitations, doesn't bother her in breaststroke.
Regardless of the outcome in Paris, the season doesn't end for her. The Mediterranean Games in Taranto are on the horizon, a competition she sees as a good opportunity. "At the last one, my best result would have been enough for gold. It's not the strongest competition in the world, but it's not a meaningless meet either, so having a medal from the Mediterranean Games sounds good," Mataja concluded. But first, it's time to get Paris done, and she'll think about everything else after Saturday's race.
