Bloodless relay: how Russia was left without a medal in the final swimming competition at the Tokyo Olympics

The day before, Evgeny Rylov started in the final of the mixed combined relay. The decision of the national team's coaching staff to declare a two-time Olympic champion in this type of program looked simply odious - it had neither logic nor common sense. Did you want to maximize the relay race in the hope of catching a medal there? This means that it was necessary to declare not only Eugene, but also Clement.

Although such an option would also be a fair gamble: by the end of the Games, both swimmers already looked pretty busy.

Kolesnikov did not even manage to reach the final of his last personal distance in the “short” freestyle sprint.

So both of them desperately needed a break before the final and very important for the country Sunday final - in the men's combined relay.

Actually, and according to the result shown by Evgeny in the "mixed game", it was obvious that the swimmer was barely dragging his legs out of fatigue: his result at the first stage was 52.79 - almost a second worse than the time with which Evgeny won the personal final.

In the men's combined relay, the leader of the Russian national team swam even slower - 52.82, and it was painful to watch: the athlete, who had no equal two days ago in Tokyo, touched only the fourth one.

This was actually the end of it.

Resentment and anger remained: having four great guys in the final, ready to fight for their team and, of course, for a medal, in the most memorable, final form of the Games, they were deprived of this opportunity by a thoughtless coaching decision - “killing” the leader with their own hands.

At the very beginning of the swimming tournament, commenting on the failure of the Russian sprinters in the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay, the team's head coach Sergei Chepik gave a rather strange explanation.

“When people ask why we swam like this, I want to ask a counter question: how did it happen that before the relay race of our leading athletes Zhenya Rylova and Kliment Kolesnikov were put on their 100 meters on their backs so on schedule that they deprived us of the opportunity to fight for a medal?

This is not usually done.

This is a new schedule.

Kolesnikov had 25 minutes between these starts ... ”- said Chepik.

After the end of the mixed relay, in which Clement did not start, because half an hour before that he was swimming in the semifinals of the personal sprint, the famous Ukrainian coach Mikhail Zubkov said in a telephone conversation with RT that he simply did not understand complaints about the inconvenient start schedule.

And he explained:

“The Olympic schedule became known for a long time, so over the past four years, everyone clearly understood what they were preparing for.

They knew how to build preparation - precisely because the time gaps between species may not be large enough.

So nothing unexpected in this respect happened in Tokyo.

Take the Italian Thomas Ceccon, who found himself in exactly the same situation as Kolesnikov.

In the same way, he started in the relay 25 minutes after his personal 100-meter race and swam his stage with the best result.

And Emma McKeon, who had seven minutes between swims, if not less?

After the semi-final "fifty kopeck" freestyle, she bought off with Caleb Dressel in the jumping pool.

Everyone is already standing in the call-room, getting ready to go to the relay start, and Emma goes to the bedside table right out of the water, drying herself with a towel along the way. "

Zubkov also explained the strange composition of the mixed Russian relay with the participation of the exhausted Rylov. According to him, everything turned out to be trite: Kolesnikov, who was to start in his personal 50 m freestyle on that day, refused to participate in the relay finals due to accumulated fatigue, and the coaches decided to send Grigory Tarasevich, who could replace him. home immediately after the swimmer has worked in the "mixed race" at the preliminary stage. Instead of a swimming pool, the guy went to the airport, and a hole started in the relay. Rylov was thrown into this embrasure.

Commenting on Yevgeny's performance on Saturday in the mixed relay, Zubkov said: “Rylov, it seems to me, should never have started in this state.

Well, an athlete of his level shouldn't show such seconds in public.

It is wrong even in relation to oneself.

The point here is not that Zhenya has additionally loaded himself physically.

Image and psychological losses are much more serious.

No one cares how tired you are if you swim badly.

And I really hope that in the final relay Eugene will do his best.

In general, a very good result is possible there.

Another question - will this be enough for a medal? "

Before the bronze medal, which was eventually taken by the Italians, the Russian four lacked 0.05 seconds.

And after all, this was really the very case when the athletes squeezed themselves out to the drop.

In fairness, it should be noted that the failure befell not only Russians in the pool.

Many swimmers from the USA, Australia, Japan performed significantly lower than expected at the Olympics (the home team was saved from shame by the only athlete - Yui Ohashi, who won two gold medals in complex swimming).

Another question is that the expectations (of the Russian swimming leadership, including) were high.

Who, for example, could have thought that without medals in Tokyo there would be a world champion and record holder in breaststroke Anton Chupkov, and the strongest sprinter in Russia, nine-time world champion in a 25-meter pool Vladimir Morozov, would not even make it to the final, despite the fact that that the personal result of this season in the 50m freestyle (21.41) could allow you to fight for at least silver?

And yet, despite the bitter relay aftertaste, this Olympics will forever remain golden for us.