The All-Russia Swimming Federation (WWF) has released an updated 2020 competition calendar that includes open water competition resuming in August and a Russian National Championship event in late October.
On the same day that Italy has announced tentative August dates for its next pool national championship meet, Russia has revealed that they’re targeting an October timeline for its 2020 long course championship.
The first upcoming event on the Russian national calendar will be a Russian Open Water Swimming Cup in Penza on August 16th.
The first pool competition for the Russian National Team will be the Games of the former countries of the USSR, which have tentative dates of September 4th-11th. The meet, for national swimmers aged 15-18 for boys or 14-17 for girls, will include swimming on September 5th-7th.
The schedule also includes the FINA Swimming World Cup Series. Rumors have been circulating about the fate of the 6-meet series, but FINA has not made any official declaration yet, in spite of announcing cancellations or postponements of many other events and series for later this year. For now, Russia lists the events with a “???” after, indicating uncertainty.
After a late-October date for its long course championship, Russia will then aim to hold the short course championship just 6 weeks later, in St. Petersburg, in its traditional mid-December slot. The Vladimir Salnikov Cup, another traditional December meet, would go off a week later int he same pool.
Russia approved a framework for its athletes to return to training earlier this month. A group of 25 national team swimmers, including World Champions Anton Chupkov and Evgeny Rylov, are currently at a camp at Krugloye Lake, while others are training elsewhere around the country.
Russia currently ranks 3rd globally in confirmed coronavirus infections with 501,800 of them – behind only the US and Brazil. Russia has only reported 6,522 deaths from the virus, however, which ranks it 13th in the world. While Russia has about 25% of the number of cases as the US does, it has only reported about 5% of the number of deaths.
2020 Russian Projected Pool/Open Water Swimming Calendar
Pool Competitions
September
- September 5-7, Kazan – Games of CIS Countries (National Team, juniors)
- September 18-21, Volgograd – All-Russia Competition “Funny Dolphin,” LCM (Boys 13-14, Girls 11-12)
- September 24-27, Volgograd – Russian Boys & Girls Championships, LCM (Boys 15-16, Girls 13-14)
- September 24-27, Volgograd – 10th Summer Spartakiad of Students of Russia 2020, 2nd Stage (Boys 15-16, Girls 13-14)
October
- October 2-4, Obninsk – Russian Cup, LCM (Senior swimmers)
- October 26-31, Kazan – Russian Championships, LCM (Senior swimmers)
- October 26-31, Kazan – Russian Junior Championships, LCM (Boys 17-18, Girls 15-17)
November
- November 4-5, Astrakhan – 10th Summer Spartakiad of Students of Russia 2020, 3rd Stage (Boys 15-16, Girls 13-14)
- November 25-29, Saransk – All-Russian swimming competition “Reserve of Russia,” SCM (boys 15-18, girls 13-17)
December
- December 9-11, Astrakhan – All-Russian Swimming Competition “Youth of Russia,” SCM (Boys 13-14, Girls 11-12)
- December 15-19, St. Petersburg – Russian Championship, 25m
- December 21-22, St. Petersburg – Vladimir Salnikov Cup
Open Water Competitions
August
- August 16, Penza – Russian Open Water Swimming Cup
- September 11-15, Sukko, Krasnodar Territory – Russian Open Water Championship
- September 11-15, Sukko, Krasnodar Territory – Russian Junior Open Water Championship
