By Maria Dobysheva
Evgeny Sedov, representing Volgograd, updated his own 50 free world’s fastest result of the year on the third day of Russian Short Course Nationals held in Kazan this week.
Sedov set 21.22 in semifinals and cut 0.22 in the finals to win the national title. 21.00 by Sedov is far from his personal best of 20.59 he posted at the World Championships in Doha in 2014, yet it was fast enough to beat a great field of sprinters in the last night’s final.
Sedov who recovered from injury that left him without the World Championships this summer, is looking forward to European championships and keeping an eye on a national record by Vladimir Morozov (20.55).
“I’m not fully prepared for this meet,” said Sedov. “I have to complete my rehab because I think my form is 50% from my best but I still have three weeks [till Euro champs] to get things done.”
Andrey Arbuzov from Krasoyarsk (21.53) and Alexander Klyukin representing Novosibirsk (21.57) managed to beat well known sprinters Oleg Tikhobaev and Sergey Fesikov for silver and bronze.
Elizaveta Permyakova from Irkutsk set a new World Junior Record in the 50 butterfly final (26.05), updated the previous one she set in the semis (26.31). It’s still slower by 0.02 than National Junior record set by Rosalya Nasretdinova in 2013 before World Junior records were established by FINA (in 2014).
17 year old Permyakova finished fourth behind Alina Kashinskaya from Sverdlovsk region who took gold (25.88), Darya Tsevtkova from Altai (silver, 25.97) and Novosibirsk’ Natalia Lovtsova (bronze, 26.03).
Anton Chupkov representing Moscow set new National Junior record in the 200 breaststroke and took silver (2:03.57), lost to Oleg Kostin from Nizhny Novgorod (2:02.74) who also won 100 breast earlier this week. Kostin finished 0.3 behind his own National record set in 2013. Vyatcheslav Sinkevich (Volgograd) took bronze with 2:03.63. All three medalists are top three world fastest so far.
Victoria Andreeva from Penza went sub-1.00 to break National record in the 100 individual medley and get gold (59.70). The old record was set in shine suit era and held for six years. Andreeva was planning to scratch finals but she felt like she could break national record and elected to swim. Saint Petersburg’s Darya Kartashova finished second with 1:00.39 and her teammate Irina Shvaeva was third, 1:00.70.
Darya K Ustinova won the 200 backstroke with 2:03.28, with a solid gap between her and her rivals. It was her second national title as she won also a hundred. 200 backstroke is arguably the best Ustinova’s event but as she said earlier, short course is not her priority but a part of Olympic training. Irina Prikhodko representing Republic of Tatarstan got silver (2:04.76) and Ekaterina Tomashevskaya completed the podium (2:05.21).
Alexander Krasnykh representing Tatarstan won another freestyle event, this time 400 (he also holds national title in 200) with 3:38.81. He improved his prelim result by 9 seconds.
“I knew 3:49 was enough to get to the final, why to die in prelims?”
Vyatcheslav Andrusenko from Saint Petersburg won silver (3:42.01) and Evgeny Kulikov from Moscow got bronze (3:44.32)
Arina Opyonysheva (Krasnoyarsk) set national junior record in the 400 free final, 4:03.08. Perm’s Darya Mullakaeva (4:03.92) and Anastasia Kirpichnikova from Sverdlovsk region (4:06.13) got silver and bronze.
Other results
Women 100 freestyle
1. Lovtsova Natalia (52.60)
2. Popova Veronika (52.64)
3. Nesterova Margarita (53.40)
4×100 freestyle
1. Saint Petersburg (3:35.80)
2. Moscow (3:38.82)
3. Sverdlovsk region (3:39.53)
Men 200 Individual Medley
1. Sergey Kashpersky (1:55.71)
2. Daniil Pasynkov (1:55.81)
3. Dmitry Gorbunov (1:55.90)