Ukraine Winter Swimming Championships (OLY Trials) Meet Preview

2020 Ukraine Winter Swimming Championships

• March 10th-13th
• Aquarena, Kharkiv, Ukraine
• Live Stream 
• Entry Lists 
• Olympic Qualifying Standards 

The Ukranian Winter Swimming Championships are kicking off tomorrow at the Aquarena in Kharkiv, and will run until Friday March 13th. The competition is the country’s Olympic trial meet, and so will see a lot of their top athletes in action trying to secure their ticket to Tokyo.

Among these stars are 50m butterfly (LCM) world record holder Andriy Govorov, Vladislav Bukhov and Sergey Shevstov, all of whom will be going head-to-head in the 50m freestyle. Bukhov secured his FINA A Qualifying Standard in this event at the Luxembourg Euro Meet back in January with his time of 21.97.

Govorov and Shevstov are the Ukranian record holders in the 50m and 100m freestyle (21.46, 48.26) respectively, so it’s tough to call who will come out on top across the sprint events this weekend.

Another athlete who also reached her time for Tokyo in Luxembourg is Daryna Zevina, who slipped under the 2:10.39 qualifying mark with 2:09.85 – setting a competition record in the process. She is the national record holder in all three backstroke events, her best time in this event standing at 2:07.48 which she set in 2016.

17-year-old Igor Troyanovsky and Ukranian record holder Denis Kessil lead the men’s field in the 200m butterfly, their entry times sitting at 1:57.78 and 1:54.79, respectively. Troyanovsky will undoubtedly be looking to swim under the qualifying mark of 1:56.48, but will need to take a hefty 1.4 seconds off his best time to date (which he set in April last year).

2016 Olympian Mykhailo Romanchuk will also be in action in the distance events across the weekend. His last Olympic campaign ended in disappointment after he finished 15th in the 1500m freestyle, failing to make the final.

As per the Olympic qualification criteria, athletes have until June 29th to reach the individual A and B standards (at FINA approved events – relay qualification cut off is May 22nd).