2020 RUSSIAN SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Sunday, October 25th – Friday, October 30th
• Aquatics Palace, Kazan, Russia
• LCM (50m)
• Olympic-qualifying competition
• SwimSwam Preview
• Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap/Day 4 Recap/Day 5 Recap
• Entries/Results

Let’s take a look at Russian teenager Ilya Borodin‘s stellar 200m and 400m IM victories from just days ago at the just-concluded Russian Swimming Championships.

First in the 200m IM, after posting a morning swim of 2:00.38, already a personal best, to claim the top seed, the 17-year-old ripped the first-sub-2:00 effort his career. Borodin touched in 1:58.00 to crush the domestic 200m IM field and claim the national title, overtaking the previous Russian standard of 1:58.16 in the process. That previous record was set by Andrey Zhilkin en route to finishing 9th at the 2019 FINA World Championships.

Borodin’s splits for this evening’s outing include the following: 25.95/29.83/33.70/28.52. Zhilkin’s race breakdown was as follows: 24.89/30.74/34.64/27.89.

Borodin finished 6th out of the 200m IM heats at the 2019 European Junior Championships but was shut out of the final due to the 2-per-nation rule. Teammates Sergei Isaev and Danil Zayytsev both beat Borodin’s mark of 2:02.53 produced there in Kazan.

For perspective, 17-year-old Borodin’s 1:58.00 time here would rank the teen as the 3rd fastest 17-18-year-old American ever in the event, sitting only behind Olympic icon Michael Phelps (National Age Record of 1:55.94) and rising superstar Carson Foster‘s 1:57.59.

As another big bonus, Borodin’s time tonight easily clears the FINA ‘A’ qualifying standard for the Tokyo Olympic Games, with that time situated at a 1:59.67.

200 IM Start at 1:12.45

Borodin clocked a time of 4:11.50 here in Kazan to not only take over the 400m IM Russian national record but also overtake the WJR mark of 4:11.93 Apostolos Papastamos clocked last year at the World Junior Championships when he won the event.

Borodin’s 4:11.50 sliced .43 off of that record but also laid waste to his own national record of 4:12.95 he logged last year for silver behind the aforementioned Greek swimmer.

Splits for Borodin’s swim tonight included the following:

Borodin’s performance renders the teen just outside the top 25 performers all-time in this event, all ages, worldwide.

For additional perspective, Borodin’s 4:11.50 here would rank him as the 2nd fastest 17-18-year-old American ever, sitting only behind Michael Phelps’ National Age Record of 4:09.09 registered in 2003.

Finally, Borodin’s time tonight would have rendered him as the bronze medalist at last year’s senior World Championships.

400 IM Starts at 1:19.14