World Champs Medalist Andrei Minakov to Stay in Russia Ahead of Freshman Year at Stanford

Photo Courtesy: Giorgio Scala / deepbluemedia

World Championships silver medalist Andrei Minakov will not be traveling to the United States this coming school year as he will do distance learning in his native Russia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Minakov, who had committed to swim at Stanford University for this fall, confirmed to Swimming World that he will be redshirting for the upcoming season.

“We came to a consensus that it’s probably the best decision for me,” Andrei Minakov said. “I am remotely enrolled and will do remote learning this year. Additionally, I am training here in Russia and preparing for the Olympics at home. I will come to campus in the fall of 2021.”

He is currently training with the Russian national team at Lake Krugloye with coach Sergei Chepik.

“Minakov is training at Krugly, he will not go to the USA now, they gave him the go-ahead for this. While he will train in Russia. As far as I understand, they have retained his place, he will go there to study, but this is still being postponed,” Chepik told RIA News by phone.

Andrei Minakov proudly wearing the Stanford S. Photo Courtesy: @andrei_minak

Stanford University will not be participating in fall sports this coming school year because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, Pac-12 schools will not participate in any sports until January 1 at the earliest. Stanford’s incoming freshman class will be without US national team members Regan Smith & Lillie Nordmann as they have both decided to defer their enrollments and train at home for another year in preparation for the Olympic Trials. And now on the men’s side, Andrei Minakov will be staying at home in Russia for the upcoming school year.

Minakov sat number three in the world in the 100 butterfly in 2019 in long course meters as he won the silver medal at the 2019 World Championships behind Caeleb Dressel and ahead of Chad Le Clos.

Andrei Minakov also swam on Russia’s prelims relay in the 4×100 free, splitting a 48.94 in the heats for the team that went on to win silver behind the Americans. He followed that up a month later with a 47.82 in anchoring Russia’s 4×100 free relay at the World Juniors as the Russians won silver behind the Americans there as well.

He won six gold medals at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games, moving up to sixth in the world rankings in the 100 fly at just 16 years old. In that 100 fly race, he had the fastest time of any Russian in 2018 and also took down Hungary’s Kristof Milak, who won the silver medal in the 100 fly at the World Championships the summer before in 2017. He followed that up with three gold medals at the European Juniors in early July 2019.

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