2019 RUSSIAN SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- April 8th-12th, 2019
- Moscow, Russia
- LCM (50m) pool
- Meet Results
- Live Stream
- Selection Procedures
After swimming a 47.56 anchor split on Moscow’s 400 free relay on Monday, Vladislav Grinev went even faster – on a flat start – during Tuesday’s individual 100 free semi-final.
The 22-year old posted the top qualifying time in 47.43, which broke the old Russian Record of 47.59 done in 2009 by Andrey Grechin when he was only 21. That reduces Russia to 19 remaining national senior records from the polyurethane suit eras of 2008 and 2009, which is still more than most nations.
Grechin’s old record-breaking swim was done in the same pool in Moscow also at a semi-final at the Russian Championships. He was slower, but still won, the final in 47.98.
Comparative Splits:
- Grechin ’09 = 23.14/24.45 = 47.59
- Grinev ’19 = 22.76/24.67 = 47.43
Grinev was out much faster than Grechin’s record-breaking swim was, though Grechin closed very well – as was a trademark during the supersuit era. Outside of that era, he wasn’t generally as good of a closer.
Grinev’s previous best time was a 48.36 from last summer’s European Championships where he placed 4th. Before the 2018 season, he had only been 49.55.
He now ranks 11th all-time in the event (performers), and bumps Kyle Chalmers’ 47.48 from Aussie Nationals earlier this week as the world’s best time so far this season.
Evgeny Rylov was the 2nd qualifier in 48.56 and Vlad Morozov was 3rd in 48.58. Kliment Kolesnikov qualified 4th in 48.64.
Grinev’s was one of two Russian Records broken on the 2nd day of competition. The other came early in the session when Veronika Andrusenko (formerly Popova) swam a 4:06.01 in the women’s 400 free final. That slid under Anna Egorova’s record of 4:06.03 done at last summer’s European Championships. Egorova was 2nd in the race in 4:06.79, which is under the selection standard for Worlds.
Andrusenko’s previous best was a 4:06.40 done at the 2017 World Championships. This record-breaking swim came in the same session as the 100 free final, almost 2 hours earlier, where Andrusenko was just 54.89 for 2nd place – almost a full second slower than her lifetime best.
In the highest-profile final of the night, the men’s 100 backstroke, Evgeny Rylov came away as champion of a very crowded group. In spite of the presence of Kliment Kolesnikov and Grigory Tarasevich, Rylov is emerging as the superstar of that Russian backstroke group: this marks the 5th-straight season in which he’s won the Russian long course title in the event. His best event, the 200 back, is still to come at the meet.
Kolesnikov was 2nd to grab the other World Championship spot in 53.03, while Tarasevich was 3rd in 53.29.
The other highlight of the day came in the men’s 200 breaststroke. There, Anton Chupkov led 4 Russian men under the qualifying standard in the with a 2:07.00. While it’s 2-tenths of a second short of his European Record, it goes down as the 3rd-best performance of all time.
Top 5 Performances in History, Men’s 200 LCM Breaststroke:
- Ippei Watanabe, Japan, 2017 – 2:06.67
- Anton Chupkov, Russia, 2018 – 2:06.80
- Anton Chupkov, Russia, 2019 – 2:07.00
- Akihiro Yamaguchi, Japan, 2012 – 2:07.01
- Ippei Watanabe, Japan, 2019 – 2:07.02
Chupkov will be joined on the roster in this event by a relative-unknown: Alexander Palatov. He took 2nd in 2:08.70. His previous best time in the event was a 2:10.45 done in 2016. The 23-year old didn’t race for over a year from 2017 through November of 2018, but dropped almost 2 seconds in his first long course meet in 19 months. Ilya Khomenko took 3rd in 2:08.72, while defending World Short Course Champion Kiril Prigoda was locked out in 4th in 2:09.05.
Other Day 2 Winners:
- Svetlana Chimrova, the Russian Record holder in the event, won the women’s 200 fly running-away in 2:10.44. She was 3.1 seconds short of her best time, though, and 2 away from the World Championship selection standard. She’ll have to rely on the coach’s discretion clause if she were to swim this race in Gwangju this summer.
- The women’s 200 back final had two swimmers under the standard for Gwangju (though neither was marked as such in the results – and we’re not sure why). Teenager Anastasia Avdeeva won the race in 2:09.89 and Daria K. Ustinova was 2nd in 2:10.30. The listed qualifying standard is 2:10.39.
- Maria Kameneva won the women’s 100 free in 53.80 – just two-tenths of a second from her Russian Record. As mentioned, Andrusenko took 2nd in 54.89 – which misses the Russian selection standard by half-a-second.
- Ilya Druzhinin went sub-15 for the first time since the Rio Olympics in the timed final of the men’s mile and won in 14:59.86. He was the only swimmer under the selection standard and was 12 seconds ahead of the field.
When I first saw the result I thought it was Girev, the star from the World Juniors a couple of years ago. Does anyone know what happened to him?
He finished 5th at 48.83 in the semifinal, not too bad.
The big question is – can he beat celeb dressel??? Lol
Right now, it looks like a yes. Still, the way he tapers, we won’t know if Caeleb Dressel is in this conversation until June at the earliest.
June? More like his first finals session at world champs.
Nah, that’s when we’ll know if he’s gotten any better at riding that motorcycle.
I think in general you have to look at Russian performances now the same way we look at the East German women’s performances of the 70s and 80s; that is to say they should be be largely discounted and a separate running count of medals should be kept. Their records should be looked at similarly to the old tech suit records, and we should try to recognize the athletes they beat as champions and avoid the injustices dealt to swimmers like Shirley Babashoff as best we can.
Not sure I would go that far ,but given the well-publicized situation there is no way to look at a performance like this without a skeptical eye. It’s unfortunate and unfair to the clean athletes but that’s just how it is.
I get what you’re saying, here, and I’ve been pretty outspoken on my views that doping is probably waaaay more prevalent in swimming than we’d like to believe (aka >50% of Olympic finalists are doping) but watching the footage of this race in particular has me convinced that there is more to this 47.4 than PEDs. The guy just has an insane feel for the water and something clicked for this race. PEDs would let him maintain a crazy tempo the whole way, which would explain how he came back in a 24.6… but his strokes are long and controlled the whole way home, much longer than you’d expect at the finish of a 100. That’s technique. Something about the… Read more »
Let’s see if he can drop even more time for the finals tomorrow
It’s not fair to say ‘dethrone’ unless he beats King Kyle face to face, but he’s indeed a pretty serious threat now and makes the 100 free battle this summer a lot more interesting.
Chupkov has 2 sub 2:07 200 breast if I recall correctly
Yes, 2.06.96 at the 2017 WC. Today’s swim is the fourth fastest ever.
Literally have never heard of this guy
He’s been there for a while for Russian relays. I remember he dropped a 47-something split in the mixed relay at last year’s Euros. Yet still a huge breakout for him here.
In 2018 he was fourth both at EuroChamps LCM (48.36) and at Worlds SCM (45.92), 3 tenths behind the winners (Miressi and Dressel respectively).
Great technique for this swimmer, unknown at high levels until 2018.
Such a Grinev (47.7 in the heats, 47.4 in the semi) is a massive asset for Russian 400 free relay.
I’m sure that the two “backstrokers” Rylov and Kolesnikov, two great swimmers, will be excellent also in the 400 free relay (not counting youngsters like Girev and Minakov), so all depends on Morozov.
Morozov was capable to swim incredible splits (under 47″) and in this case it would be game over for the other nations.