2024 RUSSIAN SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Thursday, November 21st – Tuesday, November 26th
- St. Petersburg, Russia
- SCM (25m)
- SwimSwam Preview
- Entries/Results
- Livestream
We saw day 5 of the 2024 Russian Short Course Championships unfold with swimmers vying for national titles in St. Petersburg.
Right off the bat, 15-year-old Ksenia Misharina made her presence known in the women’s 1500m free final, firing off a new personal best for gold.
Misharina stopped the clock at 15:45.72 to handily defeat the field in the sole sub-16:00 result. Behind her was Anastasia Kuvicho who notched 16:07.40 for silver while Alexandra Khailova rounded out the podium in 16:08.19.
As for young Misharina, the budding ace’s performance overtook the previous Russian Junior Record of 14:52.14 Margarita Ershova put on the books 2 years ago.
Misharina now ranks as the 3rd-fastest female on the planet thus far this season.
2024-2025 SCM Women 1500 Free
GOSE
15:24.69
| 2 | Simona QUADARELLA | ITA | 15:30.14 | 12/13 |
| 3 | Jillian COX | USA | 15:41.29 | 12/13 |
| 4 | Anastasiia KIRPICHNIKOVA | FRA | 15:43.33 | 12/13 |
| 5 | Tiana Kritzinger | AUS | 15:44.44 | 12/13 |
The women’s 200m IM saw Yana Shakirova get it done for gold, turning in a time of 2:09.08. That’s a new personal best, ranking her as Russia’s 6th-best performer in history.
Irina Zvyagintseva touched in 2:09.80 as the silver medalist in her fastest performance, followed by Daria Trofimova, who clinched bronze in 2:10.56.
It was a tough battle in the men’s 50m fly but Roman Shevlyakov was up to the challenge, grabbing gold in a time of 22.15. That shaved .04 off the 22.19 he posted at last year’s championships. It also fell just .08 outside the current Russian record of 22.07 Oleg Kostin put on the books in 2019.
Tonight, 32-year-old veteran Kostin settled for silver in 22.41 and Egor Yurchenko bagged the bronze in 22.57.
The men’s 400m IM saw national record holder Ilya Borodin put on a show, with the 21-year-old blasting a time of 3:57.67 to win the race by over 7 seconds.
His time was within striking distance of his personal best, the Russian record and European record of 3:56.47 logged at the 2021 Short Course World Championships.
Eduard Valiakhmetov was next to the wall in 4:05.21 followed by Vakhtang Bagaturia who notched 4:09.88
Borodin’s time now renders him the #1 performer in the world this season, displacing reigning Olympic champion Leon Marchand of France who previously held the fastest time of 3:58.30 from the 2nd stop of the 2024 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup circuit.
2024-2025 SCM Men 400 IM
Borodin
3:56.83
| 2 | Carson FOSTER | USA | 3:57.45 | 12/14 |
| 3 | Leon Marchand | FRA | 3:58.30 | 10/26 |
| 4 | Alberto Razzetti | ITA | 3:58.83 | 12/14 |
| 5 | Daiya SETO | JPN | 3:59.43 | 10/26 |
20-year-old Evgenia Chikunova dominated the women’s 100m breaststroke final, crushing a gold medal-worthy result of 1:04.07.
Splitting 30.52/33.55, Chikunova easily defeated Olympic medalist Yuliya Efimova who touched in 1:05.28. Ralina Gilazova rounded out the podium in 1:05.84.
Chikunova owns a personal best of 1:03.53 from the 2022 Russian Short Course Championships while Efimova remains the Russian national record holder, courtesy of the 1:02.91 lifetime best registered in 2016.
Finally, Maria Osetrova was too quick to catch in the women’s 50m back, producing a winning effort of 26.51. That edged out Arina Khiteva who settled for silver just .02 behind in 26.43 as Milana Stepanova collected bronze in 26.66.
Additional Notes
- Arina Surkova took two top seeds in tonight’s women’s semi-finals. First, in the 50m free, Surkova clocked the sole time of the field under 24 seconds, an outing of 23.78 to land lane 4 for tomorrow night’s main event. Then in the 100m fly, Surkova clocked 56.98 to hold a healthy advantage over 2nd-seeded Daria Klepikova (57.72) and 3rd-seeded Alexandra Kuznetsova (58.04).
- The men’s 100m free saw Igor Kornev register a time of 45.97 to earn the pole position over 4-time gold medalist here Kliment Kolesnikkov. Kolesnikov touched in 46.98 to flank Kornev while Dmitry Zhaavoronkov will be on the other side in 47.14.
- Kirill Prigoda produced a time of 25.80 to lead the men’s 100m breast semi-finals. He already earned a new 100m breast national record here and will try to hold off teammate Ivan Kojakin who hit 26.10 as the 2nd seed and Belarusian Ilya Shymanovich who put up 26.17 as the 3rd-seeded swimmer.
Something to keep in mind as we monitor these Russian SC Championships is the fact that World Aquatics recently released an updated list of athletes and support personnel from “nations in conflict” that have been approved to compete and attend sanctioned events as neutrals.
The global governing body recently approved new guidelines for athlete participation for nations in conflict, which currently includes Russia and Belarus.
We need to see a showdown between Kate and chichunova.
Rocky IV style
“I must break you.”
rigggghhhtt. Now, let Leon rest for a few days while someone holds his beer.
If they ever want to compete again internationally they have to beg their king Pootin, not the civilised world. But they don’t. Vast majority of them don’t even attempt to flee the country and change the citizenship. Which totally means silent and obedient support of this war to me. Deserved isolation 🤷🏻♂️
The Russians can already compete at a championships – it’s called the enhanced games! 💉💉💉
From a pure swimming perspective, it’s sad thinking what these clearly massive talents like Chikunova and Borodin could be doing if they had world level competition.
Obviously the considerations and consequences here are far graver than any sport, but another footnote of unnecessarily wasted youth and promise from one man’s megalomania.
They should be allowed to swim. Banning innocent athletes does nothing to stop any war.
Prime careers are being wasted
It should only be viewed from pure swimming perspective. When politics and sports get mixed up you get things like the 1972 Olympic massacre.
Politics is in every aspect of life.
Putin will use russian wins to further enhance his status in Russia.
His territory snatchn Ukraine has huge implications for all of Europe and ultimately the rest of the world.
I don’t think his status would be lessened by athletes’ absence from international meets either.
Fact: Nobody outside the swimming world cares about swimming community championships.
That is not true, morning call. Putin’s ambition to reunite the old Soviet Union – against the desire of the citizenry of the Countries he hopes to impound – needs to be met with every form of opposition. We will not recognize your athletes, we will not recognize your art, we will seize the wealth of your oligarch partners and disable your ability to move freely about the world.
This is a real war, not a cold war. I don’t think the US should have boycotted the 1980 Olympics, but this is a distinctly different situation.
I’d need proof they are remotely clean to care because until proven otherwise there is no reason to think any Russian athlete based in Russia is clean
What about Russians based in America like Somov?