Russia Swam Over Europe
With 25 medals, including 12 gold ones, the team of Russia triumphed at the European Swimming Championships that ended in Eindhoven on Monday. Russia left behind all continental rivals, which, however, doesn’t mean the team will be equally victorious at Beijing Olympics.
The triumph in the men’s 4x100m medley final, where Russia set a new record and won ahead of Croatia and Sweden, extended the gold list of the team to a dozen medals. It is 2.5 fold above the achievements of the closest competitors – Italy, Spain and France have five medals each, Germany has four medals, and Holland won the same four. So, the gap appears enormous.
Diving veterans Dmitry Sautin and Yulia Pakhalina secured four gold medals for the team. The number could have been five actually, but for the failure of springboard favorite Gleb Galperin on the last day of the competitions.
But the obvious heroes were the swimmers, who surpassed the baldest expectations. They won seven gold, a silver and two bronze medals in the previous Europe’s championships held in Budapest two years ago. That result seemed quite acceptable, especially after a silver won at the Athens Olympics for all.
In Eindhoven, however, our swimmers hit even Hungarian record and won eight gold, seven silver and five bronze medals.
The pleasure of the team’s coach Alexander Klokov isn’t surprising. “A new team of Russia was born in Eindhoven,” he said. What’s more, the age of our winners inspires optimism. Yulia Efimova, who was the best in 200m and the second in 50m breaststroke, is just 16 years old. Another star, Anastasia Zueva is two years older. Both of them, same as Alena Alekseeva, 20, made the debut in the top tournaments only past year. They all are able to progress and compete for at least two Olympic cycles in addition to the current one.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 26, 2008
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