SAINT PETERSBURG, Russia, February 22. AS previously reported, Russian backstroker Anastasia Zueva has been on fire over at the Russian Open Championships held this week in Saint Petersburg. Now, we have a more complete run down of the meet thanks to Swimming World European correspondent Federico Ferraro, who works with Nuoto.it.
On top of Zueva's European record time of 59.64 in the 100 back and her national standard of 28.26 in the 50 back, she also topped the 200 back in 2:09.84 – just a bit off Stanislava Komorova's national record time of 2:09.62 set at the 2004 Athens Games.
Other swimmers also complete title trifectas during the meet. Daria Belyakina touched first in the women's 200 free (1:59.84), 400 free (4:12.17) and 200 IM (2:15.06), while Nikita Lobintsev hit the wall first in the men's 200 free (1:47.53), 400 free (3:46.44) and 800 free (7:53.30). Meanwhile, Nikolay Skvortsov swept the men's butterfly events with wins in the 50 fly (24.17), 100 fly (52.83) and 200 fly (1:56.39).
Double wins came from Valentina Artemeva with victories in the 50 breast (31.67) and 50 fly (27.00), while Yuliya Efimova grabbed the 100 breast (1:08.34) and 200 breast (2:25.48). Also, Yana Martynova claimed the 200 fly (2:10.52) and 400 IM (4:42.07) for the women.
For the men, Sergey Fesikov won the 50 free (22.45) and 50 back (26.04), while Aleksandr Tikhonov swept the IM events in the 200 IM (2:02.35) and 400 IM (4:17.96).
Anastasiya Aksenova (50 free: 25.80), Olga Klyuchnikova (100 free: 55.88), Elena Sokolova (800 free: 8:43.73), Ekaterina Seliverstova (1500 free: 16:40.64) and Natalia Sutyagina (100 fly: 59.24) won individual titles for the women.
On the men's side, Andrey Grechin (100 free: 49.31), Sergey Bolshakov (1500 free: 15:14.38), Stanislav Donets (100 back: 55.76), Arkady Vyatchanin (200 back: 2:00.48), Sergey Geybel (50 breast: 28.41), Grigory Falko (100 breast: 1:01.62) and Andrey Ivanov (200 breast: 2:13.06) won crowns as well.