Andrei Minakov Breaks World Junior Record With 22.34 in SCM 50 FL at RUS Champs

2020 RUSSIAN SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Monday, December 14 – Saturday, December 19
• St. Petersburg, Russia
• SCM (25m)
• Prelims 9 AM / Finals 6 PM (Local Time)
• Meet Page
• Online Broadcast
• Live results

With just two weeks left to break world junior records, Andrei Minakov added one more entry to the record books with a  22.34 in the 50 fly.

The 18-year-old Minakov is eligible to break world junior records until January 1 of 2021. The 2002-born flyer already owns the long course 50 fly world junior record (23.05) and added the short course version on day 5 of the Russian Short Course Championships in Saint Petersburg.

22.34 goes under the world junior benchmark time of 22.43 established by FINA in 2016. The first junior to go under the benchmark time grabs the official world junior record.

Minakov is also just three tenths of a second off the overall Russian record of 22.07 set by Oleg Kostin in 2019.

Other notable finishes from Friday:

• Arina Surkova and Svetlana Chimrova tied for the top qualifying spot in the semifinals of the 100 fly. Both women went 57.22. Surkova set the national record at 56.36 just last month in the International Swimming League.
• With just a single event to break up the double, Surkova returned from that 100 fly to lead semifinals of the 50 free in 24.07.
• In the men’s 100 free semifinals, Vladislav Grinev went 46.48 to narrowly lead over Ivan Girev (46.51) and Evgeny Rylov (46.58).
• Kirill Prigoda led semifinals of the 50 breast in 26.27, well off his Russian-record 25.49 from the ISL season.
• Young swimmers led the women’s 50 back, with 18-year-old Daria Vaskina going 26.41 for a new personal best ahead of 15-year-old Alexandra Kirilkina (26.94).
• 17-year-old Ilya Borodin went 4:01.91 to win the 400 IM. That’s a drop of 1.7 seconds for Borodin, who has a year left to chase the 3:59.15 world junior benchmark. Borodin already owns the long course 400 IM world junior record.
• And 16-year-old Evgeniia Chikunova starred in the 100 breast, going 1:04.35 for a new personal best.