Russian Junior Swimming Championships
- Tuesday, December 1 – Saturday, December 5, 2020
- Saransk, Russia
- LCM (50M)
- Live Results
- Live Video/Video Replay
The first 2 days of Russian Junior Swimming Championships wrapped up with some of the country’s fastest juniors racing in Saransk, Russia. The meet is split into 4 categories of racing; boys aged 15-16, boys aged 17-18, girls aged 13-14, and girls aged 15-17.
Throughout the first 2 days of competition, Daniil Kosenkov and Daria Trofimova lead the medal table, each with 3 golds.
On day 1, Trofimova swam to victory in the junior category of the 15-17 girls as she dipped under 55 seconds to notch a 54.89. The swim was by far the fastest in the field with Victoria Starostina hitting a 57.05 for second and Ulyana Linda swimming a 57.52 for third.
Trofimova’s swim ties the same time, done at October’s Russian Championships, as her personal best.
While that swim for Trofimova was an impressive time, it was actually not even her fastest 100 freestyle of the night. Trofimova was back at the end of the session to anchor the 4×100 freestyle relay to help her Novosibirsk team to victory. The relay take-over gave her speed to push a 53.99 second leg. That’s a desicive improvement from the 55.4o that she split at the 2019 World Junior Swimming Championships en route to a silver medal for Russia in the mixed 4×100 freestyle.
That 53.99 split would have tied as Russia’s fastest 400 free relay split at the 2019 World Championships, where they finished 9th in prelims and missed the final. That relay was essentially one leg short of making the final, where they can sub in Veronika Andrusenko. With Andrusenko, Kameneva, Daria S. Ustinova, and a rising Trofimova at their best, Russia probably now hs the 4th-best women’s 400 free relay in the world – and are within shouting distance of the Canadians.
Following her relay split, Trofimova returned on day 2 of the meet to win gold in the 400 freestlye. She raced to a 4:19.22 victory, ahead of Margarita Varulnikova and Elena Shelobanova who swam a 4:21.59 and 4:21.66 for second and third, respectively.
In the 15-16 year-old boys category, Daniil Kosenkov swam to a first-place finish in the 400 freestyle, hitting a 3:57.01 to beat out Kirillov Konstantin and Alexander Lyubarsky who were second and third in 3:58.44 and 4:00.79, respectively.
That swim was nearly quick enough to win the 17-18 year-old boys’ event, less tha a second slower than Evgeniy Mitin’s winning time of 3:56.41.
Kosenkov followed his 400 freestyle performance by contributing to a first-place finish for St. Petersburg in the 4×100 freestyle relay. He, along with Ilya Kaidalov, Ilya Moldon, and Igor Volkov swam a 3:27.90 to tie the Moscow contingent of Lev Koptyaev, Artyom Orlov, Daniil Vladimirov, and Artyom Rybalo for first. They were followed by the Samara Region for third with a 3:31.82.
Kosenkov’s third medal came of day 2 of the meet when he won the 15-16 year-old 100 freestyle with a 51.02. Egor Kornev followed with a 51.59 and Nikita Chernousov was third in 51.66.
Alexey Sudarev was another triple medalist as of day 2, picking up gold in the 17-18 year-old 200 breast and the 200 IM, along with a bronze in the 4×100 freestyle. In the 200 breast on day 1, he swam a 2:13.73 to outtouch Dmitry Askhabov who touched second with a 2:13.92. To round out the podium, Vladimir Nikitin finished with a 2:17.66.
Sudarev followed up that gold medal swim to earn bronze in the 4×100 freestyle with fellow Sverdlovsk swimmers Ivan Kuzmin, Dmitry Dorozhevets, and Vladislav Taran. On day 2, Sudarev was back to capture gold in the 200 IM. He was the first to touch the wall by more than a second, swimmign a 2:03.96 to Igor Varganov’s 2:05.55 for second. Evengy Volynsky was third with a 2:05.59.
Racing will continue tomorrow featuring another slate of finals;
Day 3 Event
- Women’s 50 Backstroke
- Men’s 50 Breaststroke
- Women’s 200 Freestyle
- Men’s Backstroke
- Women’s 100 Butterfly
- Women’s 1500 Freestyle
- Men’s 4×200 Freestyle Relay
- Women’s 4×100 Medley Relay
