Neutral Athlete Miron Lifintsev Breaks World Junior Record in the 100 SCM Backstroke

2024 Short Course World Championships

• December 10-15, 2024
• Duna Arena, Budapest, Hungary
• SCM (25m)
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Miron Lifintsev, a Neutral Athlete holding a Russian passport, has broken the World Junior Record in the boys’ 100 backstroke in short course meters as part of a World Championship-winning performance on Wednesday.

Lifintsev, who turned 18 on April 25 of this year, swam 48.76 to break the Russian Junior Record and World Junior Record of 48.90 that was set by his countrymate Kliment Kolesnikov at the 2017 Vladimir Salnikov Cup in St. Petersburg.

Lifintsev has been an emergent face for Russia over the last 13 months. He had a huge drop to go 49.37 in November 2023, and he ticket that down again in St. Petersburg at the Russian Championships two weeks ago, swimming 49.26.

He now becomes the second Russian to win the World Championship in this event after Stanislav Donets in 2010. Lifintsev has risen to fill the gap in the Neutral/Russian backstroke lineup with Evgeny Rylov unlikely to be eligible for international swimming any time soon and Kliment Kolesnikov reportedly declining to attend this meet.

Splits Comparison

Lifintsev’s improvement created a balanced swim, dropping about three tenths on the first 50 and two on the last 50. Kolesnikov’s pacing is really unique at the elite level, going out quite slow and finishing like a freight train – even in his former World Record swim of 48.58 in 2020, he opened in just 23.80.

Lifintsev now ranks as the 4th-best performer in the history of the event, with about four-tenths to go to catch American Coleman Stewart‘s World Record of 48.33 from the 2021 ISL season, including those set by Russian swimmers.

Top 5 Performers All-Time, Men’s 100 Short Course Meters Backstroke

1. Coleman Stewart, USA – 48.33
2. Ryan Murphy, USA – 48.50
3. Kliment Kolesnikov, Russia – 48.58
4. Miron Lifintsev, Russia – 48.76
5. Shaine Casas, USA – 48.84

Interestingly, three of the other four swimmers in the top five are all active, but none swam the event at this meet. Murphy and Kolesnikov didn’t swim at all, while Shaine Casas chose to focus on the 200 IM – but may still have a medley relay leadoff later in the meet. Coleman Stewart is only 26, but retired relatively young at 25.

While Kilesnikov’s mark was also the former European Junior Record, European Aquatics has been slow to publicly recognize European Records on their website in 2024.

Canadian Record for Blake Tierney

Further down the rankings in 5th, Canadian Blake Tierney finished in 5th place with a time of 49.39. That breaks the Canadian Record of 49.71 set by Javier Acevedo at this meet in 2022.

This is a gigantic personal best from Tierney whose previous fastest swim was a 51.73 done at the Canada West Championships in November. He previously ranked just 10th all-time in Canadian history.

Tierney, a 3rd-year with the Canadian U Sports-favored UBC Thunderbirds, skipped last year’s Canadian collegiate championship meet to focus on Olympic preparations. He qualified for Paris in both the 100 back and 200 back, finishing 16th in the semi-finals of the former (53.71) and 19th in prelims of the 200 back (1:58.39). He also led off Canada’s 5th-place 400 medley relay.

Tierney was recently named Swimming Canada’s Breakout Swimmer of the Year.