Day 1
Day 1 of the Russian Swimming Cup saw great success for the Moscow Swimming club. This was brought about by two opening victories in the form of Elizaveta Gorshkova and Alexander Osipenko in the 800m freestyle and 400Im respectively. Gorshkova’s winning time of 8.40.69 was nearly one and a half seconds under her previous best set in May 2014. Osipenko’s time of 4.22 however was still 4 seconds adrift of his 4.18 best set this April in Moscow.
The race of the night was the men’s 100m freestyle with five men going under the 50 second barrier. It was however Nikita Konovalov who got the win with a 49.30 just out touching Evgeny Lagunov (49.39) and Stanislav Stepanov rounded off the podium in 49.63. Konovalov’s time of 49.30 was only 0.4 seconds from his best of 48.90 set 6 years ago in 2009.
Interestingly whilst these men do not possess the powerhouse names of Russian sprinting like Vladimir Morozov and Nikita Lobitnzev, having 5 men under the 50 second barrier is a worrying sign for the rest of the world.
Moreover, coming into this meet, Russia already had 15 swimmers under 50 seconds, and now they’ve added three more to that tally. Only 17 Americans have done it, and the defending 400 free relay champions France have only 9 swimmers under the mark
The swim of the night however came from 17 year old Daria Ustinova swimming a2.07.42 in the women’s 200m backstroke to win by nearly 4 seconds. She showed signs of great early speed turning in 1.01.93 at the 100 mark which itself was more than 3 seconds clear of second place. Ustinova’s time was just shy of her 2.07.29 best set back in April at the Russian Championships.
Other impressive swims on the night came from Viktoria Andreeva and Natalia Lovtsova in the women’s 200m freestyle and 100m butterfly respectively.
Andreeva’s winning time of 1.57.81 was only 0.5 seconds from her best set two years ago at the 2013 World University games while Lovstsova’s time of 58.61 was also fractions out from her best of 58.26 set in April of this year. Finally Alexander Red swam an impressive 400m freestyle taking the win in 3.50.07 more than five seconds ahead of second place.
Full results can be found here: http://www.russwimming.ru/upload/live/ruscup2015_ruza/index.html
20 swimmers under 50sec according the current top 25 Aus list.
How many Australia have? Brazil has 14 i think
17 under 50 on 2015?
Sounds like it. But only one under 49, no? Adrian-48.8