2024 RUSSIAN SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Thursday, November 21st – Tuesday, November 26th
- St. Petersburg, Russia
- SCM (25m)
- SwimSwam Preview
- Day 1 Recap
- Entries/Results
- Livestream
The 2024 Russian Short Course Championships saw day two unfold from St. Petersburg with several big names in the pool racing for national titles.
Among them was 28-year-old Kirill Prigoda who fired off a new national record in the men’s 100m breaststroke.
Prigoda lowered his own previous standard from 56.02 to 55.95 en route to claiming silver behind winner Ilya Shymanovich. Shymanovich, the current world record holder in the event, got to the wall a hair ahead of Prigoda, logging 55.91 as the winner.
You can read more about Prigoda’s new record here.
Olympic medalist Kliment Kolesnikov took on his bread-and-butter 100m backstroke this evening, winning the event in a time of 49.69.
He was one of three sub-50-second swimmers with Miron Lifincev as last night’s top seed, hitting 49.69 for silver. Pavel Samusenko was 49.76 for bronze.
Lifincev was faster last night, landing lane 4 in a time of 49.42, the 2nd-best time of his career. Kolesnikov is Russia’s national record holder with his PB of 48.58 while Samusenko has been as quick as 49.23 in his career.
On the women’s side, Elizaveta Agapitova produced the top 100m back result, grabbing gold in 57.94. That sneaked ahead of Milana Stepanova who settled for silver just .05 later in 57.99, tying Alina Gayfutdinova who clocked the exact same result in the tightly-fought battle.
Evgenia Chikunova was too quick to catch in the women’s 50m breast, producing the sole time of the field under the 30-second barrier.
Chikunova, the reigning LCM 200 breast world record holder, punched a time of 29.74. Ralina Giliazova earned silver in 30.02 and Olympic medalist Yuliya Efimova rounded out the podium in 30.34.
Additional Notes
- Svetlana Chimrova was the women’s 200m butterfly victor, with her time of 2:08.34 beating the field by well over a second.
- The men’s 200m free saw Roman Akimov get it done for gold, posting 1:43.03 for a new personal best. Last year at this competition he logged 1:43.93 for his first-ever foray under the 1:44 barrier. Tonight, Alexander Shchegolev touched in 1:43.54 for silver and Nikolay Kolesnikov bagged bronze in 1:44.10.
- In the semi-finals of the men’s 100m fly, it was Roman Shevlyakov who landed lane 4 for tomorrow night’s final. He touched in 50.27 to hold a healthy advantage over the next-swiftest swimmer Egor Kornev who turned in 50.70. Mikhail Vekovischev is also in the mix, courtesy of his 50.85 in tonight’s semi’s.
Something to keep in mind as we monitor these Russian SC Championships is the fact that World Aquatics recently released an updated list of athletes and support personnel from “nations in conflict” that have been approved to compete and attend sanctioned events as neutrals.
The global governing body recently approved new guidelines for athlete participation for nations in conflict, which currently includes Russia and Belarus.
Of the medalists tonight, Efimova and Shymanovich are among the approved athletes.
