Up to 600 swimmers to compete at Russian short course swimming championships in Kazan

The Russian Short Course Swimming Championships started off today at the Aquatics Palace, Kazan. The tournament serves as the qualification event for at the FINA World Short Course (25m) Swimming Championship due to be held in Windsor (CAN) on December 6-11, 2016.

The Kazan edition of the national championship brought together 578 swimmers from 61 regions of Russia who will compete in 46 medal events. 37 athletes represent the Republic of Tatarstan. Among the participants are leaders of the national team, Olympic medallists Anton Chupkov and Evgeny Rylov, who will miss the Canadian tournament, as well as other renowned swimmers such as Nikita Lobintsev, Alexander Sukhorukov and many others. Spectators will be able to attend the tournament free of charge: entrance to the event is free.

A kickoff press conference was held on the opening day of the tournament. The event was attended by President of the Russian Swimming Federation (RSF), FINA Bureau member and Olympic champion Vladimir Salnikov, Tatarstan's Minister of Youth Affiars and Sport Vladimir Leonov, head coach of the Russian national team Sergey Kolmogorov and deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Olga Pavlova.

According to Salnikov, after a successful staging of the 2015 FINA World Championships, Kazan earned itself a place in the global swimming community. The tournament was organised to the highest standard, and the organisers of the 2017 edition will have to try hard to repeat Kazan's success. "Kazan raised the bar very high," he said.

Vladimir Leonov said that Kazan had received governmental guarantees and submitted a bid as one of the candidate cities for the 2022 FINA Swimming (25m) Championships. "We have everything required for hosting the event - experience, infrastructure. We hope that the decision about it will ne made at the upcoming FINA Executive Committee meeting. All the documents and presentations are ready; the delegation has been put together. Therefore, we will defend our interests. All the more so we have built very positive and efficient partnership relations with the FINA," Leonov said. According to him, next year Kazan will traditionally host the FINA/NVC World Diving Series and is probably going to stage a world synchro swimming and water polo tournaments. Key talks will be conducted in Canada."

According to Olga Pavlova, apart from being a sporting event, the championships is also socially oriented - children from socially disadvantaged families will attend competitions as part of the Support Our Athletes! campaign. Plus, RSF President Vladimir Salnikov will visit the Alekseevsky Municipal District of the Republic of Tatarstan to give a masterclass for children.

Head coach of the Russian national swimming team, Sergey Kolmogorov, informed that Chupkov and Rylov, who are going to compete in Kazan, will miss out on the Canadian tournament. According to him, the Russian Swimming Federation decided to accommodate the famous swimmers who have individual training programmes and train in the United States, and will take into account their World Cup results for qualifying for the World Championships. The same regards Morozov, Efimova and Tarasevich.

The press conference ended with the awarding ceremony during which Director General of the Directorate for Sports and Social Projects, Azat Kadyrov, was presented with the Russian Swimming Federation's commendation letter.

The organisers of the Russian Short Course Swimming (25 m) Championships are the Ministry of Sport of the Russian Federation, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sport of the Republic of Tatarstan, Directorate of Sports and Social Projects, Russian Swimming Federation and Swimming Federation of the Republic of Tatarstan. The start of the preliminary heats is at 10:00, and the start of the final and semi-finals are from 5 to 8 November at 18:00, and on 9 November at 17:00.