2016 was a tumultuous year in Russian swimming. Russia’s most awarded swimmer of her generation, Yulia Efimova, test positive for a banned substance a second time. Then a huge portion of Russia’s Olympic swim team banned, unbanned, and in purgatory for weeks and months, learning only of their eligibillity. Ultimately, Russia struggled in Rio, just like they did at last year’s World Championships, though Efimova did win 2 silver medals in the 100 and 200 breaststroke.
All of the chaos, though, was not enough to dissuade them from bringing back Vladimir Salnikov for another term as the president of the All-Russian Swimming Federation, through the 2020 Olympic Games.
Salnikov ran unopposted in elections earlier this week that also saw 2 first vice presidents of the federation voted to retain their posts: Gregory Stetsyuk and Victor Avdienko. Igor Gorin, the president of te Rostov region, was also elected as a first vice-president.
Two-time Olympic champion Denis Pankratov was elected the president of the Masters swimming federation.
Salnikov was first elected to his post in 2009, continuing a long career in the sport. As an athlete, he won 4 Olympic gold medals at the 1980 and 1988 Olympic Games as a distance freestyler, along with 4 World Championships. For 11 years, he was the World Record holder in the 1500 free.
After his career as an athlete, he represented the Speedo brand in Russia, served as a member of the Soviet Olympic Committee, and served on the FINA athletes’ commission.
While Russia has been quick to pull the trigger on their national team coaches after a lack of recent success (they hired the last coach in September 2015 and are already looking for a new one).
AB
