First victory in 25 years and medals in relay races: what to expect from Russian swimmers at the Tokyo Olympics

The swimmers' competition will begin in Tokyo on the second day after the opening ceremony, and one of the main intrigues of the Olympic tournament boils down to the question: will Russian athletes be able to live up to their hopes and win the first gold medals of the Games since 1996? And if so, how much? The boldest predictions include the number five. Evgeny Rylov, Kliment Kolesnikov, Anton Chupkov, Vladimir Morozov and Martin Malyutin are among the leaders in the world ranking in individual program types, and there are also rabbit relay races, where the chances of winning are higher than ever. True, these optimistic forecasts concern exclusively male swimming.

For those who are impatient to put an equal sign between the current ranking positions and places on the Olympic podium, I would strongly recommend mentally going back a little over 20 years ago and remembering the Games in Sydney. In that Olympic team, there were also people who, it seemed, could not lose in any case - four-time Olympic champion and world record holder in the 100-meter freestyle Alexander Popov, as well as the planet's record holder and the clear favorite of the 100-meter breaststroke Roman Sludnov. The first lost gold to the Dutchman Peter van den Hugenband, the second reached only bronze, saying: “It seemed that the preparation was perfect, I felt great right up to the start. And I jumped into the water - and felt that I could not do anything. They just floated away from me ... ”.

On the eve of the team's departure for the final training camp in Vladivostok, head coach Sergei Chepik said briefly: “At the Olympic Games, everyone will swim very quickly. But the most thankless thing now is to keep track of other people's results. The preparation of an athlete claiming a high result should not change due to the fact that someone somewhere has swum better or worse. "

Any competition is always a great variety of pitfalls.

The danger for the Russians lies in the intention of Rylov and Kolesnikov to start in the 4x100 m freestyle relay, as happened at the recent European Championships in Budapest.

The qualifying competition will take place in the evening, and the preliminary relay race will take place less than half an hour after the preliminary 100-meter race of the spinners.

And in the morning of the next day, half an hour apart from each other, the semifinals of the 100-meter backstroke and the final of the relay will be located.

And here it is not the form of an individual athlete that comes to the fore, but his ability to recover.

European champion Igor Marchenko believes that in this aspect the Russians are significantly inferior to foreign rivals.

“I have lived in North America for many years and can see how meticulous they are with the recovery process. Ice pools were in use ten years ago, when I myself swam with David Salo. A person finishes, first of all, they take blood for lactate from him, and two specialists work. Then immediately to the massage table. But even with excellent and well-established methods, I will say that no athlete can recover one hundred percent in 20 minutes if he is not Michael Phelps. All the rest either "merge" the second distance, or endure to the last, but still swim for a second or two worse than a personal record, "Marchenko said.

It seems that at the May championship of the continent, both of our swimmers fell into this trap: Russia won the rabbit relay, but Rylov remained eighth in the individual 100-meter race, and Kolesnikov did not qualify for the final at all.

A certain concern about the Olympic prospects of Kolesnikov was expressed immediately after the April selection to the team and the head coach.

In his opinion, it makes sense for the ward to refuse to start at the fastest of the Olympic distances - "fifty kopeck" freestyle.

“In relay races, a flurry of load will fall on him. Both in freestyle and combined. In addition, we have a vacant distance of 200 m on the back. Kolesnikov did not swim it at the Russian Championship, and Grigory Tarasevich failed to fulfill the standard. If Clement wants to swim 200 m in Tokyo, this will add three more difficult starts to him - preliminary, semifinal and final. And the "fifty kopeck" is not only held at the end of the Games, but also very difficult. I’m one or two hundredths of a second late at the start, and you’re not fighting for anything. It is clear that at the Olympics no one will give you those two hundredths. Therefore, in relation to Kolesnikov, I would not bet on "fifty kopecks". Perhaps I'm wrong, ”Chepik said.  

Which of the following distances is more important for the team?

Definitely a relay race.

In Tokyo, medals in this form will be played on the third day of the competition, or rather even the second, except for the evening of preliminary starts on Saturday 24 July.

And it depends on the relay race with what mood Russian swimmers will enter the main competitive stream.

As for personal awards, the same Marchenko, listing all the pitfalls that may be in Rylov's way at the 100-meter distance, said without hesitation: if he were offered to put money on the result, he would have made only one bet - on Rylova at a distance of 200 m on his back ...

It is worth mentioning that for the first time in many years, surprises can be presented in the first two finals of the Olympics on Sunday: Malyutin is among the strongest world four at a distance of 400 m freestyle, and Ilya Borodin is a contender for a medal at the most difficult of swimming distances - 400 m complex swimming. And if in the first of these types our country had Olympic victories twice (in 1980 - with Vladimir Salnikov and in 1992 - with Yevgeny Sadovy), then in the complex the only gold was won in 1980 by Alexander Sidorenko.

If everything goes well for Malyutin and Borodin, then it may well turn out that by the time of the final in the 4x100 m freestyle relay there will be a couple of awards in the Russian piggy bank, which will surely add courage.

And this should definitely be used, since in subsequent team heats, the domestic chances look much weaker when compared with the American in the combined relay or the British - in the 4x200 m freestyle.

Although Chepik is undoubtedly right: now is not the time to think about other people's seconds, to figure out possible layouts in advance and to argue: will the king of the Russian and world breaststroke Chupkov be able to retain these positions, or is he destined to repeat the fate of Sludnov in Tokyo?

As the once great and too early passed away Gennady Turetsky said, the most important thing at the Olympics is to catch an emotional peak, an upswing in the last three weeks.

Set a goal for each day during these weeks to be emotionally better than the last.

You cannot do anything functionally - the work is done and its result does not depend much on you.

But emotionally, you can pull yourself out and, accordingly, the readiness to start is quite high.

Sometimes delicious food, good weather or a beautiful view from the window are enough for this.

It remains only to wish the Russian team to find all these components at the final training camp.