Ruta Meilutyte Hits World Championships Qualifying Time In 100 Breaststroke

2022 LITHUANIAN SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Tuesday, April 19th – Friday, April 22nd
• Klaipeda, Lithuania
• LCM (5om)
• Qualifying Opportunity for World Championships/European Championships
• Live Results
• Livestream

The 2022 Lithuanian Swimming Championships rolled on from Klaipeda, with out-of-retirement Ruta Meilutyte making waves in women’s breaststroke and freestyle events to close out the competition.

As a reminder, this 4-day meet represented another qualifying opportunity for Lithuanian swimmers for this summer’s World Championships, although several swimmers have already nailed qualifying times previous to this, including Meilutyte.

• Danas Rapsys – 200m/400m free
• Andrius Sidlauskas – 100m/200m breast
• Ruta Meilutyte – 50m breast
• Kotryna Teterevkova – 50m/100m/200m breast

On day 3, Meilutyte topped the 50m free podium, hitting a time of 25.52. That was enough to give the 25-year-old Olympic champion the edge over Ieva Maluka of Latvia, who was the top-seeded swimmer out of the prelims.  This morning Maluka was 25.94 and she dropped that down to 25.90 for silver.

For Meilutyte, the multi-faceted racer owns a 50m free lifetime best of 25.04 from the 2018 European Championships, so she was only about half a second away from that PB.

For her final event at the competition, Meilutyte put up a time of 1:07.07 to just miss out on gold in her signature 100m breaststroke event.

Topping the podium was Kotryna Teterevkova, the woman who already nailed a new national record in the 400m IM earlier in the meet. Teterevkova touched in 1:07.01 for 1breast gold this evening, although she’s been as fast as 1:06.35 this season.

Although Teterevkova has already qualified for the 2022 World Championships across all 3 breaststroke events, Meilutyte had previously only hit a Budapest-worthy qualification mark in the 50m breast.

Splitting 31.58/35.49 tonight, however, Meilutyte’s season-best of 1:07.07 to comfortably dip under the FINA ‘A’ cut of 1:07.43.

Meilutyte owns a lifetime best and national record of 1:04.35 from 2013, while she had previously taken Olympic gold in the event in 2012 London with a time of 1:05.47.

Teterevkova had won the women’s 200m breaststroke yesterday, nabbing the top spot with a result of 2:25.21. Her season-best rests at 2:22.88 from February, a result which ranks her #3 in the world this season.

We reported earlier this year that Meilutyte joined her country’s National Team on a training trip in Tenerife with a goal to decide about attendance at the World Championships. Her racing at this meet appears to have communicated her intentions, although we’ll wait for the final roster announcement once the FINA qualification window has closed next month.

Additional Winners:

• Improving the Lithuanian age record in the 100m back for 15-year-old boys was Mantas Kauspedas. The teen fired off a time of 58.80 to grab the gold, ultimately placing 9th. That’s a significant time drop for Kauspedas, who entered this meet with a personal best of 1:00.70 from May 2021.
• Also on the men’s side, Tomas Navikonis found success in the 100m freestyle. Putting up the only sub-50 second time of the field, Navikonis got to the wall in 49.91, enough to hold off Daniil Pancereva who earned runner-up status in 50.13. For Navikonis, his time here sliced .01 off of his previous PB of 49.92 put up just last month at the Stockholm Open.
• Andrius Sidlauskas posted a time of 27.39 to take the men’s 50m breaststroke here, getting to the wall nearly 2 seconds ahead of the competition. Sidlauskas already took the 100m and 200m breaststroke events here but also added the 200m IM to his collection of wins, touching in 2:02.86.
• The women’s 100m freestyle saw Smilte Plytnykaite register a time of 56.58 to beat the field by well over a second.
• 19-year-old Maluka was also in the water for the 400m free, capturing gold here in a mark of 4:27.88, as well as winning the 200m fly with a time of 2:21.54.