Russian National head coach Sergei Chepik announced that the Russian Swimming Federation will be holding 4 training camps in preperation for the European Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, which will be held August 3rd-9th.
According to Chepik, the first 2 camps are to be held at the same time in May, one of which will be held in Tsakhkadzor, and the other in Kruglom. The 3rd camp will be in Bulgaria starting on June 2nd. The 4th and final camp will be held at a location TBD and will begin on June 24th.
The announcement of these camps comes as Russia attempts to duplicate its performance in the 2017 edition of the European Championships, which was Short Course rather than Long Course. Last year, Russia led the medal table, but in the last Long Course edition of the European Championships, they only tallied up 2 medals. In addition to their excellent performance at Euros last year, Russia also tied with China for 3rd in the medals table at the 2017 FINA World Championships in Budapest. That marked Russia’s 2nd best finish at the World Championships since the fall of the Soviet Union, and was a nice bounce back from a couple years of disappointing team performances in international competitions, which were also plagued by doping allegations.
Chepik made his announcement on the first day of the Russian Swimming Championships, which serves as the qualifying meet for Euros. The full European Championships team, which will be the group invited to the camps, will be announced in the coming weeks.