2025 BALTIC STATES CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Saturday, March 8th & Sunday, March 9th
- Aura Waterpark, Tartu, Estonia
- LCM (50m)
- Results
The 2025 Baltic States Championships took place in Tartu, Estonia, over the weekend. Athletes competed from the host country, Latvia, Lithuania, and beyond.
Purdue University commit Janis Dzirkalis of Latvia was the man to beat in the 50m and 100m freestyle sprints with the future Boilermaker topping the podium in each.
In the splash n’ dash, Dzirkalis grabbed the gold in a time of 22.56, although he was slightly faster in the prelims where he snagged the top seed in a mark of 22.47.
Both outings overtook his previous personal best of 22.60, a time he produced for silver at last month’s Latvian Championships. That stood as the Latvian national record so he sliced .13 off to turn in a new national benchmark.
The 100m free saw Dzirkalis stop the clock in a time of 50.34 as one of two sub-51-second swimmers.
Splitting 24.09/26.25, Dzirkalis was able to hold off Lithuanian Julius Backulis who settled for silver just a hair behind in 50.63.
The women’s performances were highlighted by host country swimmer Maria Romanjuk who punched a time of 1:09.34 to take the 100m breaststroke.
Romanjuk narrowly defeated Smilte Plytnykaite of Lithuania, who scored silver just .19 behind in 1:09.53, although both women had been much quicker in their careers.
Romanjuk owns a personal best of 1:07.68 logged during the 2021 European Championships while Plytnykaite owns a career-quickest mark of 1:07.91 from when she earned silver at last year’s European Junior Championships.
As a reminder, Plytnykaite has committed to compete for the University of Virginia Cavaliers for the 2026-27 season.