2021 LATVIAN OPEN
- Friday, February 26th – Sunday, February 28th
- Riga, Latvia
- LCM (50m)
- Olympic Qualifying Competition
- Live Results
- Livestream
14-year-old Estonian swimmer Eneli Jefimova turned heads on day 1 of this 2021 Latvian Open, crushing a personal best of 1:07.53 in the women’s 100m breaststroke.
Although she was downgraded to silver tonight in the 200m breaststroke race, Jefimova still checked in with a new Estonian national record en route to a personal best. Touching the wall in a time of 2:27.84, the teen was just under 2 seconds behind winner Alina Zmushka of Belarus.
Zmushka stopped the clock in a time of 2:25.93, narrowly missing the FINA ‘A’ qualifying standard of 2:25.52 needed for the 2020 Olympic Games postponed to this summer in Tokyo, Japan. As a consolation, the 24-year-old World Championships swimmer checked in with a new Belarusian national record. Her result there hacked her previous PB of 2:27.51 to pieces.
As for Jefimova, the Estonian had never before been under the 2:30 threshold in this 2breast event, having owned a previous personal best of 2:32.39 from this same meet last year. As such, she knocked over 4 seconds off her previous career-quickest en route to the new record. Splits for Jefimova included 1:12.77/1:15.07.
Short course world record holder Ilya Shymanovich of Belarus was in the water again tonight, following up on his victory in the 100m breast from day 1 here in Riga. The 26-year-old produced a modest outing of 2:14.98 in the 200m breast this time around, enough for gold, but well off his PB of 2:10.97 from 2019.
Additional Winners:
- Finnish national record holder Mimosa Jallow topped the women’s 100m backstroke field in a time of 1:01.63.
- Mikita Tsmyh of Belarus was the quickest 100m backstroker of the men, posting 54.91 for gold tonight.
- Anastasiya Kuliashova of Belarus was the top 50m flyer for the women, hitting 26.79 as the only sub-27 second swimmer of the field.
- The men’s 50m fly was won by fellow Belarusian Grigori Pekarski in 23.69, just .02 ahead of countryman Yauhen Tsurkin.