Last week, experts within Russia’s Ministry of Sports met to check in on the progress of various sporting teams heading into next year’s Rio Olympic Games, and swimming didn’t exactly get a glowing review.
The Expert Council was chaired by Yuri Nagornykh, the Deputy Minister of Sports for the Russian Federation. After the meeting, Russia’s swimming federation president Vladimir Salnikov said the council called Russia’s medal total at the 2015 World Championships “hardly satisfactory,” expressing their displeasure with the 4-medal total brought in by head coach Anatoly Zhuravlev‘s crew.
The council also chastised open water head coach Alexei Akateva after the Russian team failed to bring home any medals from the home World Championships in Kazan.
Still, federation president Salnikov asked the Ministry not to rush into any decisions about the long term coaching future of Russia’s national team. The swimming federation itself will make its own proposals about coaching duties next week, on September 15th.
Russia earned four pool swimming medals at the 2015 World Championships, which it hosted, and just one medal was gold. Helping soften the blow for the Russian Swimming Federation at last week’s meetings, though, was the fact that their junior swimmers did very well at both the European Games and European Youth Olympic Festival, as well as Junior Worlds just a few weeks ago.
You can find the full press release on the Sports Ministry’s meeting (in its original Russian) here.
Yeah, I agree. They were very lackluster. They have some upcoming juniors though that may turn things around. We shall see.
In the old days they just sent everyone to Siberia and they never came back. Now though it’s so tough to make a podium there isn’t much they can do in a year and if they hit the juice again it’s gonna be obvious
This smells like the work of a world leader who likes to horseback shirtless
Yuri and Vlad,
This is what happens when the eyes of the world are upon you and your swimmers are nervous about getting caught doping. Not to worry, when the heat dies down, you just have to learn how to microdose better in time for Rio.
LOL @ Joel Lin
It would be the most Russia swimming thing ever if they just send the whole team to train at Arizona State.