Yesterday ended the last, seventh day of the Russian Swimming Championship Long course) in Kazan. An extremely important and at the same time bright event was held in the swimming pool of the Aquatics Palace, which will be remembered by many scholarship holders for their own personal success, as well as worthy results at the level of Russian athletes. Of course, the purpose of the event was related to the formation of the Russian national team for the upcoming Olympic Games in Tokyo, but it is also a good opportunity for our FINA athletes to show their readiness for future big starts.

The last day of the competition gave us a national record, several personal best results, as well as the final of Arina Baikova in 800 meters freestyle, where she was able to show a good time – 09:06.13.

In the morning part, 6 fellows competed in the 50-meter freestyle heats:

- Eloi Maniraguha (Rwanda) showed an outstanding time for himself, and meanwhile set a new national record of Rwanda – 0:26.03, improving the previous one by almost a second.

- Fahim Anwari (Afghanistan) swam to his own best result-0:27.94.

- Saddam Ramziyorzoda (Tajikistan) also continues to please us with his progress, as a result, his own best result is 0.26:98.

- Ado Gargovic (Montenegro) swam in 0:25.17. Most likely, it was fatigue after several national records.

- Jackson Abeku (Ghana) competed with the strongest Russian sprinters, with a total of 0:23.71 and a few hundredths of a second missing from the semifinals.

Bisma Khan (Pakistan) swam out of 0.40 seconds short of a new national record. Her time is 0: 27.94.

At the end of 7 days of competition, the team of the FINA Center managed to show outstanding results:

- 6 times our athletes participated in the evening session of competitions, in the semifinals and finals.

- 21 personal bests of the FINA Development Center fellows were set at the competition.

- well, the most important indicator of the progress of the coaching staff, as well as the athletes themselves, is the number of new national records set at the Russian Championship.

List of bew national records of the FINA Development Center team:

1^st day
1. Ado Gargovic (Montenegro) 400 free – 4:11,11

2^nd day
2. Fahim Anwari (Afganistan) 50 fly – 0:28,79
3. Saddam Ramziyorzoda (Tajikistan) 50 fly (junior) – 0:29,54
4. Ado Gargovic (Montenegro) 200 free – 1:56,34

3^rd day
5. Fahim Anwari (Afganistan) 50 breast – 0:31,89
6. Salvador Gordo 200 fly (Angola) (junior) – 2:09,90
7. Luis Vega Torres (Cuba) 200 fly – 1:58,58
8. Arina Baikova (Latvia) 1500 free – 17:27,28

4^th day
9. Eloi Maniraguha (Rwanda) 100 free – 0:57,99
10. Saddam Ramziyorzoda (Tajikistan) 100 free (junior) – 0:58,91

5^th day
11. Bisma Khan (Pakistan) 100 free – 1:02,37
12. Ado Gargovic (Montenegro) 200 IM – 2:12,46
13. Salvador Gordo (Angola) 200 IM (junior) – 2:11,29
14. Saddam Ramziyorzoda (Tajikistan) 200 IM – 2:34,34

6^th day
15. Salvador Gordo (Angola) 100 fly – 0:55,57
16. Saddam Ramziyorzoda (Tajikistan) 100 fly – 1:03,87

7^th day
17. Eloi Maniraguha (Rwanda) 50 free – 0:26,03

The coach of the FINA Development center - Darina Sergeeva left a comment on the results of the Russian Championship:

"Well.... the week-long Russian Championship has come to an end and for the team of the FINA Development Center-it was an extremely unforgettable experience. To be honest, I was not ready for such an "exhaust" after only three months of working with athletes. Three-at best, because many arrived only by the end of January or the beginning of February. During this time, it is usually not possible to do some voluminous block of work. But even during these 9-12 weeks, our athletes were able to prepare in a way that we never dreamed of.

There is not a single swimmer in this group who has not swum to their best or broken the national record. 17 highscores! I give a standing ovation to our athletes, honestly.

I would like to single out someone, but I can't. All well done. A decent performance. But for us, it was more of an infusion into the working mode. Pasha and I will build on these results in our further preparation for new starts. For the athletes today, new heights have been reached, for the coaches-the realization that working at full strength is now not enough, now you need to work even harder.

In any case, congratulations to all those involved in the FINA DC team at this championship - we are all great fellows!»

Summing up the results of the Russian Olympic selection in swimming, we can say with confidence that it was a very successful start for the team as a whole, especially during the key preparatory process before the Olympics.

Our team managed to learn from the experience of athletes from Russia with an international name. Being at the start in the same pool, you start to feel the importance of the work that you have done in training. So we want to keep up the pace at the next starts and continue to pursue our dreams.