Yulia Efimova Will Race for Olympic Qualifications at Bahamas Nationals This Weekend

2024 Bahamas National Swimming Championships

• June 20-23, 2024
• Betty Kelly Kenning National Swim Complex, Oakes Field, Nassau
• Long Course Meters (50m)
• Results on Meet Mobile: “52nd Bahamas National Swimming Championships”

In the final weekend globally of Olympic qualifying, Bahamas Aquatics says that this year’s National Swimming Championships might be its biggest ever. While it’s not the only North American qualification event this weekend (Canada is hosting Mel Zajac Jr.), many swimmers training out of the US and gunning for their Olympic selection standard have chosen to come to the Bahamas in order to hit Olympic “A” Standards.

World Aquatics has warned federations that “B” standard spots are going to be hard to come by, which means that swimmers this week will be searching for the faster “A” standards or to become their countries’ Universality qualifiers.

Among those seeking qualification is World Record holder, six-time World Champion, and three-time Olympic medalist Yulia Efimova.

Efimova, 32, recently became the lone Russian swimmer approved for neutral status for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games amid a general ban on the country’s formal participation in the Games.

After hinting earlier this year that she was considering a run to qualify for the Olympic Games, she now needs to hit the qualifying standard (because it seems unlikely that Russia gets universality standards).

Efimova has been living and training primarily in the United States in Southern California for at least the last decade. Her last major international competition was the Tokyo 2020 Olympics (2021), where she finished 5th in the 100 breaststroke in 1:06.02.

Her best time in the qualifying period is a 1:07.43 in the 100 breast and 2:26.45 in the 200 breast done at the Russian Championships in April. She has only rarely raced since the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The Olympic “A” standards are 1:06.79 and 2:23.91, respectively.

While Russian authorities have publicly said that it is up to individual athletes to decide if they want to apply for neutral status and compete at the Olympics, in general, volunteers have been sparse. Many more athletes from Belarus, which is also formally barred from competing, have applied and been approved.

Efimova is entered in the 50 breast, 100 breast, 200 breast, and 200 IM.

There are international swimmers from across the Caribbean and South America entered in the meet, but also some from further away. There are also swimmers from America (Tristan Stevens, Luke Schwenk, Christian March, Stephanie Iannaccone), a big team from Kenya, and groups from Tonga and Uganda. There was a team from India that was supposed to swim, but they wound up dropping out of the meet.

Among the biggest names out of that crowd of internationals is American-based Jillian Crooks, younger sister of the 2022 World Short Course Champion Jordan Crooks. Jillian holds multiple Caymanese National Records, but is still chasing the Olympic “A” standards.