The Russian Swimming Federation will reportedly consider postponing the Russian Swimming Championships, the primary qualification meet for the nation’s athletes for the Tokyo Games, RSport reported Wednesday.
Russia had previously committed to holding the meet as scheduled – April 3-9 at the Palace of Water Sports in Kazan – without spectators. On Wednesday, however, the Russian Ministry of Sports recommended that all Russian sports federations and other authorities cancel or reschedule all official sports competitions in the country starting Sunday and until further notice.
You can find the list of Russian athletes eligible to compete at the 2020 Russian Swimming Championships here (in Russian). All of the nation’s stars are expected to attend, including Vlad Morozov, Yuliya Efimova, Vladislav Grinev, Andrei Minakov, Evgeny Rylov, and Arina Surkova.
Should Russia postpone its meet, it would follow a similar trajectory to Brazil, which also initially closed its meet to spectators before postponing it to late June. Chinese Nationals, French Elite Nationals, the Irish Open Championships and New Zealand Nationals have also been postponed. As of publishing, 14 nations have canceled their Olympic Trials meets entirely.
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Who thinks the Olympics are going to happen as scheduled?
In my mind there’s about a 5% chance
Russia is still banned indefinitely from the Olympics, so I’m not sure what Trials they think they’re having…
That’s not how the ban works.