2021 Swim Open Stockholm

• April 8-11, 2021
• Eriksdalsbadet, Stockholm, Sweden
• LCM Format (50m)
• Start Times (Local Time): Heats: 9:30 AM, B/C Finals: 4:30 PM, A Finals: 6 PM
• FINA Olympic Qualifying Standards
• Meet Site
• Live Results
• Live Stream (Available for €4.99/Session)

Three new Israeli national records have been set in Stockholm through the first two days of racing.

Coming into the meet, the fastest an Israeli woman had swum the 200 freestyle was 1:59.01 by Andi Murez in 2015. Yesterday, Anastasia Gorbenko became the first Israeli woman to break 1:59 as she swam 1:58.99 to finish second in the women’s event. Murez placed third behind Gorbenko as she matched her best of 1:59.01.

Friday night, Murez reclaimed her record as she led-off the 800 freestyle relay in 1:57.97, becoming the first Israeli woman under 1:58. Murez teamed-up with Gorbenko (2:01.84), Lea Polonsky (2:04.18), and 15-year old Daria Golovaty (2:02.92) to set a new Israeli record of 8:06.91. Incredibly, this broke the previous record by over 17 seconds. The previous record of 8:24.74 had stood since 2016.

Israel can set their sights on qualifying the 800 free relay for Tokyo. We have previously looked at relay qualification for Tokyo.  FINA doesn’t officially publish up-to-date rankings for relay qualification, so we’ve done our best to compile the current rankings manually. The only change since January is South Africa moving into the third wildcard spot, which bumped France out of the last wildcard spot. 

The relay from today doesn’t put Israel into a wildcard position, but they should have more in the tank as Gorbenko, Polonsky, and Golovaty were all off of their best times. Polonsky swam a 2:01.02 in December and Golovaty was 2:01.68 in the individual event yesterday. Their best times aggregate to 7:59.66, even without accounting for relay splits. 

Their next opportunity to race this event will be at next month’s European Championships in Budapest, Hungary.