The second day of competition at the Russian Swimming Championships will be remembered for the strong results of the participants of the scholarship program.

For the FINA Development this start is a good opportunity to experience a tight competition schedule, as well as strong competition between Russian athletes.

Today 9 out of 14 FINA Development athletes took part in the morning heats of Russian swimming Championships.

The coaching staff of the FINA Development Center has compiled an optimal schedule of pre-competition training, and today progress was shown at the sprint distances.

1) Jackson Abeku (Ghana) in the morning session at the distance of 50 meters butterfly showed a good time – 0:24.41. Falling behind in the first 25-meter race, he was able to close the gap and literally with a few milliseconds difference broke into the semifinals.

In the semifinals, he was able to give a brilliant swim, despite the fact that the Russian national team athlete Andrey Zhilkin competed with him, as well as the extremely talented Andrey Minakov.

In the semifinals, Jackson swam 50 meters better than the morning part, by several hundredths of a second, with a total result of 0:24.39, which can be considered as a normal result in the opening segment of the competition. Participation in the semifinal heats of the Russian Championship is already a worthy result, which will only improve.

After the semi-final, Jackson shared his impressions of the start: "It was really a very difficult start for me, but I did my job, because the main task was to show the best time compared to the morning heats. I completed the task, but the goal of getting to the final is not there. I will be preparing for the 100m butterfly, where I have a good chance to update the Ghanaian record. Well, I would like to take this opportunity to thank FINA and my coaching staff for the opportunity to fully plunge into the training process."

In addition to the representative of Ghana, today 5 athletes of the FINA Development center also took part in the 50-meter butterfly.

1) Fahim Anwari (Afghanistan) was able to swim his best time-0:28.79, improving his previous result by 2 seconds. At the same time, the coaches began to notice his improvements in swimming technique.

2) Another hero of this race is Saddam Ramziyorzoda (Tajikistan), who also set his personal best in this difficult distance – 0:29.54, which indicates his progress in the butterfly.

3) In addition, Eloi Maniraguha and Ishihaka Irankunda (both from Rwanda) were able to demonstrate good flexibility in the butterfly, swimming the 50-meter distance in 0:28.26 and 0: 27.54, respectively.

4) Salvador Gordo (Angola) at the same distance showed a time close to his best – 0:26,31. The young athlete once again shows progress in terms of strength endurance, the coaching staff focuses on the development of his sprinting qualities. Salvador has important new distances ahead of it.

5) As yesterday, Ado Gargovic (Montenegro) showed a remarkable result for himself and his country, swimming the 200 m freestyle in 1:56.34, which is the new national record of Montenegro at this distance, improving his previously set record by almost 3 seconds. The second day, and the second consecutive national record-this is a good achievement for Ado and for the entire team of the FINA Development Center.

6) Bisma Khan (Pakistan) swam the 100 meters backstroke in 1:12.24 seconds, which is also close to the national record, which also belongs to her.

7) And the final discipline for the scholarship holders was the 400-meter freestyle, where Arina Baikova (Latvia) showed a good time for the Russian Championship – 4:24.35, four seconds were not enough to reach the final part of the competition. But for Arina, this is a good experience before her main distance of 800 meters.

The past day is full of events, but the next one promises to be much brighter, with several main distances of our scholarship holders ahead.

On April 5, at the morning session, 9 athletes of the FINA Development Center will compete in the following distances: 50 meters butterfly (women), 200 meters freestyle (women), 200 meters IM (women), 200 meters butterfly (men), 50 meters breaststroke (men), and 1500 meters freestyle (women).