A rather difficult day at the Russian Championship has come to an end. The strength of the athletes is at the limit of their capabilities, because the final part of the competition is ahead, and for some, the main Olympic qualifying distances are ahead.

Today is the day when the representatives of the FINA Development Center were not present at the evening session, but this can be called the calm before the storm. Tomorrow we will have some interesting distances, where there are good chances of reaching the final of the Russian Championship.

Today, 8 of the 14 FINA athletes participated in the morning session.

And it is safe to call this day a success for many fellows.

The first distance of the evening – it's 100 meters freestyle in women, where our wonderful athletes pleased with the coaching staff, as well as its own local Federation:

Bisma Khan (Pakistan) – swam the distance beautifully, setting a new record of Pakistan over time: 1:02,37. Bisma herself admitted that she did not expect such a result, and his performance she is very grateful to the coaches Darina and Paul. Bisma improved her record by 2 seconds.

Another great success at this distance is the Habibat Ogunbanwo swim (Nigeria). The young athlete showed a very serious time – 1:00.77, thereby ensuring her new best time, swimming a second better. Very good rowing technique combined with good endurance, gives hope for the next personal and national records. Her progress is visible on her face, we hope for further success of Habibat.

Arina Baikova (Latvia) has repeatedly shown her fighting spirit, and today is no exception. Arina swam the 100-meter freestyle very well – 0:58.01, considering that only yesterday she swam the 1500 meters in a difficult final. Arina has great endurance and we are all looking forward to her main performance in the 800 meters tomorrow.

And also Lorena Gonzalez (Cuba) gave us a good swim today, swimming in 0:58.90, but unfortunately the false start did not allow us to set our own best time. But it's great that Lorena has the desire, as well as the good speed that she will develop.

The next discipline, where four FINA Center fellows participated, was the 200-meter individual medley.

The first hero of this race is Salvador Gordo (Angola), who set a new junior national record, as well as improving his own result by 5 seconds. As a result: 2:11,29 – a remarkable result of Salvador.

The next hero was Saddam Ramiyorzoda (Tajikistan), who set his new best time - 2:34.34, as well as a new junior record of Tajikistan. Saddam swam this distance for the first time at big starts and already with a good time for him.

Ado Gargovic (Montenegro) once again swam to the national record of his country-2:12.46. Improving the previous result by 5 seconds. Ado showed very good endurance, because he had 3 serious disciplines until today.

Well, our main triumphant of the past days, Luis Vega (Cuba), after a difficult final, and other heats, showed a decent time for the Russian Championship – 2,: 10.07. He has another Olympic 100-meter butterfly ahead of him. We'll see him in action tomorrow.

All the results of today are available here.

Coach Pavel Kutashev left a comment on the results of this morning's session:

"Our athletes continue to delight us with personal and national records. After an unsuccessful start to the competition, Habibat managed to return to the ranks and improve the result in the 100 freestyle by more than a second. Salvador and Ado set new national and individual records for the 200 meters. Unfortunately, Luis was not able to show his best seconds today, but we are happy with his performance. After an active fight in the semifinal and final swims, fatigue affects both physical and moral. There are still two days ahead and we are sure that we still see new records from our athletes.»

Tomorrow we will have a busy day: 800 meters freestyle (women), 100 meters butterfly (men) and 1500 meters freestyle (men).

The final part of the competition is ahead, we are waiting for new records and strong swims from the FINA Development Center scholarship holders.