RSCSC2016: day 2 kicks off with St Petersburg swimmers’ victory in medley relay

The second competition day of the Russian Short Course Swimming Championships in Kazan featured three exciting finals. The tournament in the Tatarstan capital that brought together up to 600 athletes serves as a qualification event for the FINA World Short Course (25m) Swimming Championship in Windsor (CAN).

The evening started with the men’s 4x50m freestyle relay. Just like during two previous relays, the race was won by Saint Petersburg’s athletes. The team made of Pavel Syomochkin, Fyodor Bredikhin, Alexander Popkov and Evgeny Lagunov finished first with 1:35.15.

Swimmers of the Novosibirsk Oblast (Dmitry Lapshin, Daniil Markov, Alexander Triznov and Alexander Klyukin) earned silver with 1:35.21. The Moscow team (Nikita Bodrov, Pavel Pakhomov, Danila Dolenko and Andrey Zhilkin) clocked the third-best time - 1:35.28.

Daniil Pasynkov (Moscow) took gold in the men’s 400m individual medley. He touched the wall at 4:05,47. Moscow’s Dmitry Gorbunov placed second (4:07,32) whereas Alexander Zotov of the Volgograd Oblast showed the third-best time (4:07,61). The gold medal and the qualification time was enough for Daniil Pasynkov to be selected for the FINA World Short Course (25m) Swimming Championship in Windsor (CAN).

Natalia Ivaneeva of the Volgograd Oblast was best in the women’s 50m breaststroke event with 29.95. Valentina Artemyeva of the Novosibirsk Oblast placed second (30.24). Bronze went to Krasnoyarsk’s Anna Ganus (30.66).