2023 Russian Youth Swimming Championships
- April 25-29, 2023
- Long Course Meters (50 meters)
- Saransk, Russia
- Best Swims by FINA Points
- Live Results
Nine Meet Records were broken at the 2023 Russian Youth Swimming Championships, in Saransk, about midway between the sporting hubs of Moscow and Kazan.
The meet featured 13-14 girls and 15-16 boys.
Among the top performers at the meet was Misharina Ksenia from Moscow. She won 6 total medals, including four gold at the meet, and had the best girls’ swim of the meet by the FINA Point scoring system. That swim came in the 800 free, where she swam 8:43.48.
That was one of three Meet Records that she broke. In each case, she broke a record set last year by Sofya Dyakova.
- 400 free – 4:15.56 (Sofya Dyakova – 4:14.69) – Race Video
- 800 free – 8:43.48 (Old Record: Sofya Dyakova, 8:47.26) – Race Video
- 1500 free – 16:37.17 (Old Record: Sofya Dyakova, 16:46.18) – Race Video
With the defection of Russia’s top female distance swimmer, Anastasiya Kirpichinkova, to France, there is a gap in the group for Russia. Ksenia’s time is third-best among Russians so far this year, and would have placed 2nd at the Russian National Championships two weeks ago behind Sofia Diakova, who swam 16:27.73. Diakova, born in 2008, is another young rising distance star among a group of them.
In fact, including Misharina, the country’s top three women in the 1500 this year were born in 2007-or-later, and the top nine were all born in 2001 or later (making them 22-or-younger) – and most of those are much younger than that.
Among the other standout females was Viktoriya Karyuk, who won four races of her own for St. Petersburg, which won the team titles as well.
Her individual wins came in the 200 breast (2:32.34), 200 IM (2:20.72), and 400 IM (4:59.11). While none of those were Meet Records, with the likes of Evegniia Chikunova, Viktoria Gunes (before representing Turkey), and Yulia Efimova, breaststroke records are hard to come by in Russia, though the Meet Record actually survived all of those. Vitalina Simonova has it at 2:27 from 2006.
Still, Karyuk’s time undercut her best time from the Russian Championships by a second, putting her in the top 8 Russian women this season.
The men’s distance swimmers had a good meet too – Egor Babinich broke the Meet Record in 8:06.64, knocking five seconds of Ivan Morgun‘s 2019 Record.
But the top individual performer on the men’s side was Daniil Pisetskiy, who won the 200 breaststroke in 2:14.36. That was a new Meet Record, breaking Grigory Falko’s 2003 Meet Record, one of the oldest on the books in Russia.
That swim is about half-a-second slower than Pisetskiy’s 2:13.84 from the Russian Championships in April, which ranks him 6th in Russia and in the top 40 in Europe among all ages. He is the youngest swimmer in Russia’s top 20 performers this year in that event and is the top under-18 performer in Europe so far in 2023.
Pisetskiy also won the 50 breast in 29.04 and the 100 breast in 1:02.35. He was faster in both events at the Russian Championships.
Other Individual Records broken at the meet:
- Yaroslav Loze from Nizhny Novgorod successfully defended his meet title in the 200 back with a 2:00.31. That breaks his own Meet Record by .26 seconds and is a lifetime best – jumping him to 7th in the Russian Rankings this year.
- Kira Manokhin won the 50 back in 29.28, breaking Victoria Sendyureva’s 2021 record of 29.49. Kira Rebrova was 2nd in 29.31, also under the old record.