Being Olympic Champion and World Record holder hasn’t scared Lithuanian 16-year old away from competing against her peers by year of birth. Meilutyte, to the delight of many, made an appearance at the European Junior Championships prior to Worlds; then in Barcelona she took gold in the 100 breaststroke and silver in the 50 and broke World Records at both; and now she’ll swim at the 2013 FINA World Junior Championships in Dubai, UAE, according to the UAE’s “The National” news.
This meet pits the fastest junior swimmers in the world against each other, and while many of the world’s top eligible swimmers have sat out (like Katie Ledecky and Simone Manuel of the United States), there is no rule against prohibiting their entrance.
The presence of swimmers like Meilutyte will help improve the legitimacy of the meet, as it is not referred to as the “Junior World Championships for Swimmers Who Aren’t Good Enough to Swim At the Senior World Championships,” rather it is referred to as the “World Junior Championships”.
The meet will run from August 26th-31st.
If one makes any Australian senior team one cannot go back to junior & subsequent.y if one makes PanPacs one cannot enter youth olympics .
It is not age as much as accomplishment.
Ruta wants to do the Golden Slam of swimming that no one as been able to do. Win the olympics, sénior worlds, european junior, world junior, european sénior and the youth olympics with championships records in all. There’s only the sénior european short and long course championships and the youth olympics missing
I know they’re not European but quite a few Americans can do that if you count US Senior and Junior Nats. (recently Katie L and Missy but also many women in the past) and still they would pass up the Junior Worlds after being on the biggest stages.
The 2014 Summer Youth Olympics are scheduled for 16 to 28 August 2014 while The 2014 European Aquatics Championships will take place from 13 to 24 August 2014.
I have a feeling in my guts that Euro Champs will overtake Youth Games in Ruta’s world given the Euro Champs dates back to the late 20s while the Youth Olympics are the second edition of it.
Certainly I’m not aware of the timetable for the swimming in the Youth Games. Jets exist so who knows if she attends both. 🙂
There’s no such thing as golden slam of swimming.
But if it helps it’s usually:
for europeans: defending champion at olympics, LCM worlds, SCM worlds, euros at the same time, as well as holding WR.
for non-europeans: defending champion at olympics, LCM worlds, SCM worlds, pan pacs at the same time, as well as holding WR.
For Australians I would say that Commonwealth Games ranks ahead of SCM worlds and Pan Pacs
I agree.
And i don’t think SCM worlds should even feature in the so called “swimming slam”, as it has had short history and many top swimmers did not swim it.
Hell, the GOAT swimmer Michael Phelps only swam EXACTLY ONE event throughout his long storied career: the 200 free in 2004 Indianapolis where he won it.
Then, Junior Worlds and Youth Olympics wouldn’t figure, either, for the same reasons.
This is interesting, because there’s no real reason for her to swim at Junior World’s but there’s also no reason for her not to swim. I just hope the decision was her and her coach’s decision.
Ultimately it’s always good to have the fastest swimmers eligible in the meet.
It will be interesting to see which events she will swim and how Solnceva will do against her.
French swimming news.
Amaury Leveaux quits officially Narbonne and Philippe Lucas. He didn’t train there since April anymore. Hard for 2 big characters to work together for a long time.
And for those who are interested, he sells his pieces of furniture for 7000 euros. 🙁
Now we are waiting for his next training place. USA? Australia?
Good luck to his new coach! Leveaux isn’t an easy guy to train.
Sorry. I wanted to post a smile for the pieces of furniture! 🙂
I’m troubled since last Friday and the injury of Allyson Felix. 😥
The main favorites before this news who swim in 1.08/1.09 must be happy. They believed they could win a world junior championship title and now Miss Meilutyte is ruining their dreams!
She hasn’t any heart! She is pitiless!
She has already swum at the European junior championships before Barcelona.
She wants all possible titles.
So, now it must be the turn of Katie Ledecky and Ye Shiwen to announce they go to Dubai!
I’m sure the other young girls would enjoy their presence. 🙂
Ruta might be a bit cruel but she’s not afraid of being a punchbag for her peers either given that she tends to enter freestyle events as well. 🙂
Ruta wants to fulfil a long-course full house; namely, medaling in a junior level at the European and World championships as well as in an adult level at the European and World championships and the Olympic Games. If she will be successful in Dubai, which is quite probable, there is only one more to go at the European long course Championships in Berlin, 2014 – and she is 17 years of age then.
Doubt that she’ll taper for it though. It would be cool to see a world record at a junior meet.
Yeah! Great to hear!