Today, the Russian Swimming Championships were launched in Kazan with the Aquatics Palace being the venue for the first medal events.
The 400 m freestyle was won by Aleksandr Egorov from Moscow with the time of 3:47.50. “A very interesting swim, I pretty much caught yips on the distance as it was interesting to scrap with the guys on the last few metres. To the last I believed they would catch up,” said the champion of Russia. “My thoughts were only to keep my rivals behind and deliver the best result. But first of all you need to overcome yourself – you are your main rival”.
Second was another Moscow athlete Daniil Shatalov (3:48.28). Anton Nikitin took bronze with a 3:48.31.
The 400 m medley gold went to Anna Chernysheva from Moscow region who set the time of 4:47.67. “In general I’m satisfied with the result. There were mistakes, they are inevitable, there is room for improvements. I haven’t seen the coach yet. I think he will congratulate first and then there will be debriefing,” said Anna Chernysheva following the event. “The main goal was to win and to deliver the best result possible today.” The athlete commented on how the last few months went, “The season is still beginning, we haven’t swum for two months. We’ve been training on land, working via Skype, running and trying to keep fit somehow. All the time we missed water because swimmers are water. We’re rolling in so far, getting ready for April, for the Olympics and European Championship qualifying.
Second was Irina Krivonogova from Penza region (4:48.80). “By feel it was a bit difficult, emotionally as well, because we haven’t competed for a long time, about 7 months, and as we started we were afraid to do bad. It was messed up now,” said Irina Krivonogova after the finish. “I haven’t swum for about two months, then there was preliminary training where I tried to prepare.” The athlete is also to compete for 200 m medley, 200 m crawl and 100 m butterfly.
Anastasiya Sorokina from Krasnodar krai (4:51.27) rounded up the top 3.
The opening day of the championship also witnessed a new youth record of Russia (30.81) set in 50 m breaststroke semifinal by Evgeniya Chikunova from St Petersburg. The previous record of 31 seconds was set by Yuliya Efimova in 2008.
“I do not train a lot for the 50 m breaststroke, my main distance is 200 m breaststroke. In the morning I did a 31.65, this was close to my best result. Then I thought that I could break the youth record of Russia as it is easier to swim in the evening. And it happened this way,” said Evgeniya Chikuniova. “I “flew” easily and took 0.40 from my personal best, which is a lot for a 50 m swim.”
Press Office of Directorate for Sports and Social Projects