Competitions
At the 2006 FINA Short Course World Championships in Shanghai, Dale Oen won a bronze medal in the 100-m breaststroke, behind Oleg Lisogor and Brenton Rickard. Oen became the first Norwegian male to win a World Championships medal in swimming. Four months later, Oen followed that up with success at the 2006 European Swimming Championships, winning the silver medal in the 100-m breaststroke and setting a new Nordic record (long course), with 1:00.63.
Dale Oen won his first short-course medal at the 2006 Short Course European Championships in Helsinki, taking bronze behind two Ukrainians in the 100-m breaststroke in a new personal best of 58.70. In the 2007 World Championships, Dale Oen was second fastest in the heats (in another Nordic record, 1:00.34) and third fastest in the semifinal, but failed in the final, clocking well above 1:01.
Dale Oen repeated the feat of doing better in the semifinal than the final at the 2007 European Short Course Championships. After 58.60, a new personal best and the second-fastest time, in the semifinals, Dale Oen finished in 58.81, fifth place and 0.24 seconds behind the gold medal. However, Dale Oen dominated the 2008 European Championships. Setting a record time of 1:00.11 in the heats, and being fastest in both the heats and the semifinal, Dale Oen swam the final in a European record time of 59.76, and won the gold by 0.02 seconds ahead of Hugues Duboscq, who also swam a personal best.
At the 2008 Summer Olympics, Dale Oen earned Norway's first ever Olympic medal in swimming, placing second in the 100-m breaststroke final.
During the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai, Dale Oen won the gold medal in the 100-m breaststroke with the time 58.71, 0.71 seconds ahead of Fabio Scozzoli. This was Norway's first gold medal at a World Championship in swimming. Dale Oen's win was highly publicized because of his emotional response at the award ceremony because of the Oslo attacks a few days earlier.
Read more about this topic: Alexander Dale Oen