Russia's Ilya Borodin Overtakes Leon Marchand As Top SCM 400 IM Swimmer This Season

11/25/2024 04:23 PM

By Retta Race on SwimSwam

2024 RUSSIAN SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Thursday, November 21st – Tuesday, November 26th
• St. Petersburg, Russia
• SCM (25m)
• SwimSwam Preview
• Entries/Results
• Livestream

We saw day 5 of the 2024 Russian Short Course Championships unfold with swimmers vying for national titles in St. Petersburg.

Right off the bat, 15-year-old Ksenia Misharina made her presence known in the women’s 1500m free final, firing off a new personal best for gold.

Misharina stopped the clock at 15:45.72 to handily defeat the field in the sole sub-16:00 result. Behind her was Anastasia Kuvicho who notched 16:07.40 for silver while Alexandra Khailova rounded out the podium in 16:08.19.

As for young Misharina, the budding ace’s performance overtook the previous Russian Junior Record of 14:52.14 Margarita Ershova put on the books 2 years ago.

Misharina now ranks as the 3rd-fastest female on the planet thus far this season.

The women’s 200m IM saw Yana Shakirova get it done for gold, turning in a time of 2:09.08. That’s a new personal best, ranking her as Russia’s 6th-best performer in history.

Irina Zvyagintseva touched in 2:09.80 as the silver medalist in her fastest performance, followed by Daria Trofimova, who clinched bronze in 2:10.56.

It was a tough battle in the men’s 50m fly but Roman Shevlyakov was up to the challenge, grabbing gold in a time of 22.15. That shaved .04 off the 22.19 he posted at last year’s championships. It also fell just .08 outside the current Russian record of 22.07 Oleg Kostin put on the books in 2019.

Tonight, 32-year-old veteran Kostin settled for silver in 22.41 and Egor Yurchenko bagged the bronze in 22.57.

The men’s 400m IM saw national record holder Ilya Borodin put on a show, with the 21-year-old blasting a time of 3:57.67 to win the race by over 7 seconds.

His time was within striking distance of his personal best, the Russian record and European record of 3:56.47 logged at the 2021 Short Course World Championships.

Eduard Valiakhmetov was next to the wall in 4:05.21 followed by Vakhtang Bagaturia who notched 4:09.88

Borodin’s time now renders him the #1 performer in the world this season, displacing reigning Olympic champion Leon Marchand of France who previously held the fastest time of 3:58.30 from the 2nd stop of the 2024 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup circuit.

20-year-old Evgenia Chikunova dominated the women’s 100m breaststroke final, crushing a gold medal-worthy result of 1:04.07.

Splitting 30.52/33.55, Chikunova easily defeated Olympic medalist Yuliya Efimova who touched in 1:05.28. Ralina Gilazova rounded out the podium in 1:05.84.

Chikunova owns a personal best of 1:03.53 from the 2022 Russian Short Course Championships while Efimova remains the Russian national record holder, courtesy of the 1:02.91 lifetime best registered in 2016.

Finally, Maria Osetrova was too quick to catch in the women’s 50m back, producing a winning effort of 26.51. That edged out Arina Khiteva who settled for silver just .02 behind in 26.43 as Milana Stepanova collected bronze in 26.66.

Additional Notes

• Arina Surkova took two top seeds in tonight’s women’s semi-finals. First, in the 50m free, Surkova clocked the sole time of the field under 24 seconds, an outing of 23.78 to land lane 4 for tomorrow night’s main event. Then in the 100m fly, Surkova clocked 56.98 to hold a healthy advantage over 2nd-seeded Daria Klepikova (57.72) and 3rd-seeded Alexandra Kuznetsova (58.04).
• The men’s 100m free saw Igor Kornev register a time of 45.97 to earn the pole position over 4-time gold medalist here Kliment Kolesnikkov. Kolesnikov touched in 46.98 to flank Kornev while Dmitry Zhaavoronkov will be on the other side in 47.14.
• Kirill Prigoda produced a time of 25.80 to lead the men’s 100m breast semi-finals. He already earned a new 100m breast national record here and will try to hold off teammate Ivan Kojakin who hit 26.10 as the 2nd seed and Belarusian Ilya Shymanovich who put up 26.17 as the 3rd-seeded swimmer.

Something to keep in mind as we monitor these Russian SC Championships is the fact that World Aquatics recently released an updated list of athletes and support personnel from "nations in conflict" that have been approved to compete and attend sanctioned events as neutrals.

The global governing body recently approved new guidelines for athlete participation for nations in conflict, which currently includes Russia and Belarus.

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