Neutral Athletes ‘B’ (Russia) Set New World Junior Record In Boys’ 4×100 Freestyle Relay

2025 World Junior Swimming Championships

• August 19-24, 2025
• Otopeni, Romania
• LCM (50 meters)
• Meet Central
• Psych Sheets
• Live Results
• Live Recaps
  • Prelims: Day 1
  • Finals: Day 1

BOYS 4×100 FREESTYLE RELAY – Finals

• World Record: 3:08.24 – USA (2008)
• World Junior Record: 3:15.49 – USA (2023)
• Championship Record: 3:15.49 – USA (2023)

Top 8 Finishers:

1. NAB – 3:15.38 *World Junior Record & Championship Record*
2. Italy – 3:16.03
3. United States – 3:17.06
4. Brazil – 3:17.07
5. Great Britain – 3:18.19
6. Japan – 3:18.40
7. Canada – 3:19.30
8. France – 3:19.31

The Neutral Athletes ‘B’ boys ended the first night of finals at the 2025 World Junior Swimming Championships with a bang. In the boys’ 4×100 freestyle relay, Mikhail Shcherbakov, Roman Zhidkov, Egor Proshin, and Georgii Zlotnikov set a new world junior record with a blistering 3:15.38.

The previous record of 3:15.49 was set by the United States at the 2023 World Juniors.

The Neutral Athletes were in second place after Shcherbakov’s 49.13 lead-off leg, behind Great Britain, who had rising star Jacob Mills log 48.27 to give his squad a 0.86-second lead. But Zhidkov’s monster 48.37 split launched them into first at the halfway point, putting them ahead of Great Britain by 0.37. NAB led the rest of the way, with Proshin (48.98) extending the lead to 1.38 and Zlotnikov (48.90) holding on for the win by 0.65.

As you can see in the splits comparison below, it’s Shcherbakov’s leadoff split that made the difference for this year’s record-setting quartet. Though he put the team in a deficit behind Great Britain, his split was a full eight-tenths faster than world junior record pace. The other swimmers held strong on the final three legs, averaging 48.75 compared to the previous record’s 48.52 average.

Split Comparison, New and Old Records:

All Splits:

Looking ahead, Shcherbakov is slated to swim the 200 IM (#2 seed), 50 back (#3 seed), and 100 free (#5 seed) later in the meet.

Proshin will line up for the 50 fly (#8 seed) and 100 fly (#8 seed), though his World Aquatics listed best of 51.39 appears to be a potential mistake given his 48.98 relay performance.

Zlotnikov will only swim the 50 free, where he is the 20th seed, with his times not available in the World Aquatics database.

Zhidkov only has relay duties for the entirety of the competition.