Russian swimmers’ course: from Kazan to Singapore

Who came to the Russian Cup

10 years have passed since the Kazan FINA World Championship, but the idea of repeating it in our city was abandoned, entrusting this opportunity to Singapore. Although it was in Kazan that Singaporean Joseph Schooling first made a loud statement, winning bronze in the 100-metre butterfly. A year later he became an Olympic champion, and a year later, a bronze medalist at the World Championships. A similar path has been taken by Kazan's Yegor Kuimov, who has been a soloist at the same distance in the same style for exactly three years. Now we will be watching Singapore with bated breath, since our swimmers will be starting there again.

It was this competition scheduled for 11 July, that made serious adjustments to the composition of the Russian Cup participants. The fact is that not all of the national team members are ready to stay in peak form, which must be maintained until 3 August. Therefore, some decided to skip the starts in Kazan, while others came here under a serious training load, which they will shed as the main start approaches.

During the international starts, attention to the Russian Swimming Cup was minimal. Therefore, the regulations of these competitions were surprising, which gave fans successive starts at the same distance, first for men, then for women.

On the first day of the Russian Cup, Tatarstan fans could worry about their favourites being limited to forth place. Karina Akinova and Eduard Valiakhmetov finished fourth in the 200-metre medley.

The women's relay team in the 4x100-metre freestyle was sixth, but this is not entirely encouraging. The fact is that the Russian team, consisting of Alexandra Kuznetsova and Daria Surushkina from Saint Petersburg, Daria Klepikova from Voronezh plus Daria Trofimova from Novosibirsk, started out of the standings in this relay. They set a new Russian record, fulfilling the standard for qualifying for the World Championship. But the Saint Petersburg team without its two leaders and Voronezh without Klepikova finished first and third, respectively. Tatarstan, with its strongest line-up, was sixth. As for the men's relay, we are fifth there, but above us are two teams from Moscow and Saint Petersburg without the best sprinter Yegor Kornev. Interestingly, Saint Petersburg and the first team from Moscow were battling for gold until the fourth stage of the relay, when Vasily Kukushkin from Saint Petersburg and Ilya Zakharikov, who shortly before the relay shared second place in the 50-meter freestyle, jumped into the water. Zakharikov was faster at first, Kukushkin won in the end. The result of the 200-metre medley swim was very interesting, when Valiakhmetov from Almetyevsk stopped next to the podium. The bearded Ilya Borodin won, the bearded Maxim Stupin took 3rd place. Alexey Sudarev from Saint Petersburg squeezed between them to 2nd place. What is interesting here is that swimmers shave their bodies before important races to achieve minimum water resistance, and here are two bearded men.

Tatarstan, which competed without a leading duo, was left without medals at the home competition

Based on the results of the opening day of the competition, an unpleasant tendency began to emerge that Tatarstan, in the absence of its leaders Sofia Diakova and Andrey Minakov, would be left without awards at the home competition. On the other hand, only Moscow and Saint Petersburg, the undisputed leaders of national swimming, are capable of successfully competing in team game competitions and in Olympic disciplines. In Kazan, among the champions and prize winners were representatives of Barnaul, Voronezh, Yoshkar-Ola, Penza, Kaluga, Kemerovo, Tula, Tyumen, Omsk and Khanty-Mansiysk.

Without Ivan Giryov and Kliment Kolesnikov, Yegor Kornev and Miron Lifintsev, who skipped the Andrey Minakov Cup, the men's starts on the first day looked a bit “skim.” But the start of the second day of the competition was both surprising and reminiscent of Tatarstan. Roman Shevlyakov set a Russian record in the 100-meter butterfly, beating the result of Andrey Minakov, a representative of Sintez sports club. The result of the 50-meter backstroke was shocking, won by Yan Shapkin, 20, from Barnaul, who admitted that he lived next door to Andrey Grechin, who became his godfather. The Tatarstan relay runners in the 200-meter freestyle, who had recently been steadily adding to the republican swimming treasury, were left without medals. This looked especially offensive for the results of the women's swim, when two relay quadruples from Saint Petersburg climbed to the podium.

It's hard without Sintez

I remembered that the Kazan sports club's water polo players won gold at the Russian Cup, which is what swimmers need to strive for. As well as the results achieved by our divers. On the eve of the Russian Cup, the national diving championship ended in Yekaterinburg, and there Tatarstan and Sintez residents received five medals.

The lion's share is on Nikita Shleikher's account: full-time gold on the 3-metre springboard, silver on the platform, plus synchronized gold on the platform and silver on the 3-metre springboard. Plus Maria Polyakova's silver on the 3-metre springboard. It should be noted that Shleikher's long-time partner in synchronized diving from the 3-metre springboard, Yevgeny Kuznetsov, initially announced that he would miss the national championship due to an injury, and then made it clear that he would spend the entire season on treatment. As a result, Shleikher jumped with a new partner, Grigory Ivanov, failing to qualify for the World Championship in this discipline.

Shleikher will compete in Singapore in individual starts from the 3-metre springboard and platform, and in synchronized diving from the platform together with Ruslan Ternovoy from Voronezh, who is currently representing Moscow.