Russian 18-year old Kliment Kolesnikov is already the World Record holder in the short course meters 100 backstroke, and entered Saturday as the World Junior Record holder in the 100 long course meters backstroke. While he’s still got a ways to go to get Ryan Murphy’s senior World Record in the 100 back, he did improve his own World Junior Record in long course on Monday at the 2018 Russian Championships.
There he placed 2nd in 52.97, which broke his own record of 53.35 (pending ratification, which seems to be harder to come by for World Junior Records than it has been for World Records). The old record was set last August at the Energy for Swim! charity event in Rome.
Kolesnikov was born on July 9th, 2000, meaning that he turns 18 later this year. That makes 2018 the last year where he’ll be eligible for World Junior Records by FINA’s system that recognizes a swimmers age on December 31st, rather than the date of the swim.
After coming within a few-tenths of even-splitting his record-setting swim last year, this year Kolesnikov has instead taken a different tact, going out hard (perhaps chasing Evgeny Rylov, the event winner) and leading the field at the Russian Championships at the turn in 25.55. His back-half split suffered, but the net result was a four-tenths improvement.
Comparative Split:
| Kolesnikov | Kolesnikov |
| 2017 – Old WJR | 2018 – New WJR |
| 26.34 | 25.55 |
| 27.01 | 27.42 |
| 53.35 | 52.97 |
Kolesnikov becomes the 22nd man in history to go sub-53 in the event, tying him with Australian Hayden Stoeckel for 21st on the all-time rankings.
Race Video:
Great time but, after the 24.4 in the first day, I wuold expected something less.
I’m really curious about the his races in Glasgow.
Love the nose dives when hopping in
Any word on how big this guy is? He looks the size of Matt Grevers
Incredibly long arms it seems like
6feet 5inch in height.
6 feet 6 inches tall
No way he’s fully rested when you look at the splits. 1.9s difference? 52 low at Euros. Rylov is still a mystery in the 100. Likely also 52 low later this year. The 200 will tell us a lot.
Kolesnikov is not even shaven for this meet. He swam with beards, so he’ll definitely improve this summer. The only question is how much the improvement is.
anyone know when he ages out of WJR territory?
His birthday is July 9th, 2000. He’ll age out of WJR territory on January 1st, 2019.