2020 RUSSIAN SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Sunday, October 25th – Friday, October 30th
• Aquatics Palace, Kazan, Russia
• LCM (50m)
• Olympic-qualifying competition
• SwimSwam Preview
• Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap
• Entries/Results

18-year-old Andrei Minakov already wrangled up 100m fly gold here in Kazan at the 2020 Russian Swimming Championships, but the Stanford commit is well on his way to bagging the 50m fly gold as well.

In this morning’s heats, Minakov clocked a swim of 23.29 as a sign of how low he may take this thing, with this AM outing already sitting .10 inside his previous PB of 23.39 from last year’s World Junior Championships. There in Budapest, that time garnered Minakov the silver medal behind winner Thomas Ceccon of Italy’s gold medal-worthy 23.37.

Slicing off more time come tonight’s semifinal, Minakov roared to the wall in a time of 23.05 when all was said and done, clearing the field easily to take lane 4 for tomorrow night’s big dance. His new 23.05 lifetime best also outperforms the previous Russian Junior Record, European Junior Record, and World Junior Record, which all stood at the 23.14 Vladyslav Bukhov put on the books earlier this year.

The previous World Junior Record entering 2020 belonged to American Michael Andrew at 23.22. Minakov, who turns 19 next March, remains age-eligible for World Junior Records through December 31 of this year.

With his 23.05 clocking tonight, Minakov enters the list of all-time performers worldwide in the 50m fly, tying USA’s Eugene Godsoe and Venezuela’s Albert Subraits in the 25th slot with still the final yet to go.

Additional Notes:

• Daria Vaskina got on top of the women’s 50m back semifinal field, clocking 28.79 to claim the top seed for tomorrow’s final. She then took 50m fly gold, getting to the wall first in 26.25.
• 15-year-old Evgenia Chikunova came close to her personal best in the women’s 200m breast, producing a solid outing of 1:06.63 to claim victory. That doubles up on her 50m breast win earlier in the meet in a new Russian Junior Record time, as well as gets under the FINA ‘A’ qualifying time for the 2020 Olympic Games.
• We reported how Anton Chupkov made his mark on the meet already with a 58.85 national record 100m breaststroke performance. Tonight he was impressive once again, hitting at time of 2:07.32 in the 200m breast to become the world’s #2 performer thus far this 2020/21 season. You can read more about Chupkov’s swim here.
• Valeria Salamatina scored the 400 free women’s win in 4:10.58, while Anna Chernysheva got it done for gold in the 200m IM. Chernysheva’s time of 2:14.15 checks-in as a new Russian Junoir Record for the 18-year-old, surpassing the 2:14.38 from Anastasia Sorokina that stood as the previous record.
• Surprisingly, Vladislav Grinev came up medal-less in the men’s 50m free, settling for 4th in a time of 22.52. The man has been as fast as 22.13, but it was Ivan Kuzmenko who was in that range for gold, hitting 22.21 tonight.
• Moscow men were victorious in the 4x200m free relay with Mikhail Dovgalyuk (1:46.39), Alexander Egorov (1:48.38), Nikita Danilov (1:48.41) and Daniil Shatalov (1:45.18) combining for a time of 7:08.36 together.