A quartet of Russians have set the new World Record in the men’s 200 SCM medley relay, though they’re still shy of the European all-time mark.
In a trend that is likely to continue for some time, given the quality of the 2009 European SC Championship meet as swimmers took their last cracks at World Records, we’ve seen another World Record, that is not a World’s fastest, go onto the books. In Thursday’s final at the 2013 European Short Course Championships, Vitaly Melnikov, Oleg Kostin, Nikita Konovalov, and Vlad Morozov combined for a 1:32.38. That broke the 1:33.65 set by the Italians in prelims.
Three teams in this final were under Italy’s prelims mark: those same Italians were a 1:32.83 for the silver medal, and Germany was a 1:33.06 for the bronze medal.
The European and Championship Records, however, still belong to a 2009 Russian relay. That means the swimmers above don’t even get the Russian Record. In fact, it’s not clear that there is another record, besides the World Record, that this swim qualifies for.
Note that none of the swimmers on this World Record breaking relay aside from Morozov were on the Russian’s medley relay at the World Championships, and even Morozov swam a different stroke in Barcelona (backstroke versus freestyle).
For what it’s worth, this record is likely to be one of the first that goes down when the time comes, as it’s a rather vulnerable one (a stacked French relay should be able to achieve it fairly easily).
