The All-Russia Swimming Federation has announced a 39-swimmer (22 boys and 17 girls) roster for the 2019 European Junior Championships that will be held from July 3rd-7th in Kazan, Russia. The roster includes 3 swimmers who will pull double-duty with the World Championships: the roster for which Russia also announced on Monday.
2 of those 3 swimmers, Andrei Minakov and Daria Vaskina, swam at last year’s European Junior Championships. There, Minakov won 7 medals, including 3 individually: silver in the 100 free (49.24), gold in the 50 fly (23.56), and silver in the 100 fly (52.38). Minakov trains out of the United States where he’s based at the Terrapins Swim Team in Concord, California: the same club that produced Natalie Coughlin, among others.
Vaskina, meanwhile, will be defending individual tiles in both the 50 back (27.90) and 100 back (59.90). Her 50 back at last year’s meet was both the Championship Record and the European Junior Record in that event.
The 3rd swimmer to make both rosters is 14-year old Evgenia Chikunova. At Russian Nationals, she had a breakout meet and won the 200 breaststroke in 2:22.67, which broke the Russian Junior Record and ranks 2nd in the world this season.
That group, along with 36 others, will be defending 7 consecutive medal-table toppings at this year’s meet. The last time that Russia didn’t top the medals table at the European Junior Championships was in 2011, when Great Britain won the week.
Other returning champions for Russia include Vladislav Gerasimenko (50 breast, 100 breast) and Aleksandr Zhigalov (200 breast) who combined to sweep the boys’ breaststroke events; and Anastasia Makarova, who won last year’s girls’ 200 breaststroke title
