2021 Belarus Open Day One: Shymanovich Qualifies for Tokyo with 58.77 BR

2021 Belarus Open

The 2021 Belarus Open in Brest kicked off yesterday with its first of four finals session. Before the competition began, an opening ceremony was held to award 21 athletes with the sporting title of Master of Sports of the Republic of Belarus and the their corresponding badge. Presenting the awards were Nikolai Nikolaevich Glushenya, Brest regional executive head of the sports and tourism department, Yuri Romanovich Kuchuruk, Brest regional water sports director, and Sergei Vladislavovich Khozhempo, general secretary of the NGO “BFP”.

  • Read more about the opening ceremony here.

Among the honorees was Ilya Shymanovich, who was recognized for his 100 breast SCM world record of 55.34 from the 2020 Belarusian Short Course Championships. Yesterday, Shymanovich qualified for the Tokyo Olympics with his winning time of 58.77, easily eclipsing the automatic qualification standard of 59.93. Shymanovich is now just one one-hundredth off the top five times in the world this season.

2020-2021 LCM Men 100 Breast

AdamGBR
Peaty
07/26
57.37
2Arno
Kamminga
NED57.8007/24
3Michael
Andrew
USA58.1406/13
4Nicolo
Martinenghi
ITA58.2807/25
5Ilya
Shymanovich
BLR58.4605/17
6Nic
Fink
USA58.5006/13
View Top 26»

Three Belarusian national junior records also went down on Wednesday night. In the women’s 50 breast, Angelina Malaschenko swam 31.86/31.85 in prelims and finals to go under Yulia Zubina‘s 2017 junior record of 31.93. Malaschenko took second in the final to Alina Zmushka‘s winning time of 31.02. Into the men’s 50 back, Ivan Buevich took down the national junior record in prelims at 25.52.

Buevich gained in finals and placed second at 26.08 to event winner Nikita Tsmyg‘s 24.86. Tsmyg now ranks just outside of the top five times in the world this season, now the second Belarusian to enter the world top ten.

2020-2021 LCM Men 50 Back

2Robert
Glinta
ROU24.4205/18
3Hugo
Gonzalez
ESP24.4705/18
4Apostolos
Christou
GRE24.4905/18
5Grigory
Tarasevich
RUS24.6604/03
6Mitch
Larkin
AUS24.6704/15
View Top 28»

Then, Alesya Akinchits took down her 2020 national junior record in the 1500 free with a 17:11.54, dropping ten seconds from her former record of 17:21.51.

Picking up her second automatic Olympic qualifying cut was 18-year-old Anastasiya Shkurdai, whose winning 100 back time of 59.89 was under the 1:00.25 cut. Shkurdai swam her 100 fly lifetime best of 56.95 at the July 2020 Brest sprint meet. Shkurdai also won the

Russian Vladislav Grinev took the men’s 200 free title in Brest with a 1:48.84. Countryman Roman Shevlyakov touched out Belarus’ Evgenii Tsurkin for the men’s 100 fly title by 0.08s, 52.28 to 52.36.

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Chad
2 years ago

Wild that 58 is now normal. Crazy that it might be required to make the Olympic final.

Penguin
2 years ago

At first, I thought there was an error between the first two times (.39 for 1st then .37 for 2nd) and then I realized….

50free
2 years ago

How many dolphin kicks?

C Snake
Reply to  50free
2 years ago

Not enough apparently if he’s going 58.

BKP
Reply to  50free
2 years ago

I figured this would be the first comment, ha! Did he swim “butterstroke” or perhaps more appropriate “breastfly”

swim2
Reply to  50free
2 years ago

He can kick the whole 100 and still lose to the king peaty

About Nick Pecoraro

Nick Pecoraro

Nick has had the passion for swimming since his first dive in the water in middle school, immediately falling for breaststroke. Nick had expanded to IM events in his late teens, helping foster a short, but memorable NCAA Div III swim experience at Calvin University. While working on his B.A. …

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