Kazan, Russia, November 9, 2014 – The second night of the five-day Russian Nationals meet did not disappoint, as several world-ranking short course times were logged throughout the events. Starting things off in the men’s 400m IM event, Semen Makovich led the field with a time of 4:03.91, which now sits at seventh in the FINA world rankings. Second place finisher Alexander Tikhonov now rests at the number nine ranked spot in the world, as he clocked a swift 4:05.56.
No shake-ups in the world rankings took place within the women’s 50m breaststroke nor the men’s/women’s 100m backstroke events, although some very fast times were indeed seen in this event. Valentin Artemiev earned the 50m breaststroke victory in a swift time of 30.53, followed very closely by Natalia Ivaneeva in 30.55. Stanislav Donets earned the top spot in the men’s 100m backstroke with a 51.20, while Daria Ustinova won the women’s 100m backstroke, clocking a 58.15.
The men did some world rankings damage, however, in the 100m breaststroke and 100m butterfly races. Oleg Kostin raced into third place in the world with his winning time of 57.19 for the breaststroke, while Eugene Korotyshkin moved into the fifth-ranked time in the world with his winning 50.10 time for the butterfly.
The men’s 4 x 200 free relay is where the real fireworks happened, where Danila Izotov led off his Krasnodar teammates with a world-leading 1:41.48 200 freestyle split. This time now sits atop the world rankings, ousting the previous number one, Thomas Fraser-Holmes, whose time of 1:41.92 from Doha back in August.
The final event of the night was the mixed 4 x 50m medley relay, where Saint Petersburg earned the win in 1:40.77.
The meet continues at 10:00 local time, with preliminaries of the men’s 50m backstroke, 400m freestyle, and 200 IM. Preliminaries of the women’s 4 x 50m medley relay, 200m backstroke, 100m breaststroke, and 400m freestyle are also scheduled to be held.
Full Meet Results Available Here