World Championship in Singapore ended with gold for Russia and Andrey Minakov

World Championships Summary

The main outcome of the World Championships was the return of the Russian team to the international arena. The world swimming world has witnessed two international scandals in the last ten years alone. The most telling is the confrontation between the Anglo-Saxons and China's world swimming star Sun Yang at the 2019 World Championships in Gwangju, Korea. The second is at the Rio Olympics, when American Lilly King launched a crusade against Yulia Efimova. Now it was quiet, but not without scandals at all. Although they were caused by quite different prerequisites.

Footnotes in the margin: the comeback did not happen in full, our water polo players watched the World Championships on TV. The results are curious, because for men the podium was occupied by the teams of Spain, Hungary and Greece, and for women the same, but in mirror image — the teams of Greece, Hungary and Spain. What is striking is the absence of the US women's team, which lost to Spain in the bronze medal match. It's like when Viktor Tikhonov's CSKA hockey team would have been left out of the USSR championship in Soviet times.

The two silver medals won by Kazan's Agniya Tulupova deserve a separate story, and it will be.

Silver Nikita Shleicher

We already had the text about Nikita Shleicher's silver medal in the synchronised 3-metre springboard jump. Only details can be added to it. It should be remembered that up to that time Shleikher had been ski jumping with Evgeny Kuznetsov, but his long-term partner missed the Russian Championships, and now the World Championships, consecutively due to injury. It was necessary to carry out the process of ‘combat alignment’ with Ruslan Ternov in a short time. It is clear that every sport has its own nuances, in the same figure skating new partners take up to a year to create a duo. In our case, everything happened quite quickly, and even more successfully than at the last international start of Kuznetsov and Schleicher. We remember that it was Olympic Tokyo, when until the last jump the Russians claimed third place, and in the end they botched it and finished in last, eighth place. It was such post-Olympic Tokyo pain, amplified by the loss of the bronze medal in tennis, claimed by Veronika Kudermetova and Elena Vesnina. Back to the topic of mirror outcomes. Kudermetova recently won the Wimbledon doubles. Schleicher was second at the World Championships.

Alas, the associations between Tokyo and the current season can be continued with the results of the World Fencing Championships, when Olympic heroine Marta Martyanova and her friends failed at the World Championships in Georgia. They also failed. But what a gift it would have been for the opening of the rebuilt fencing school, which will be inaugurated by the Day of the Republic.

Golden Alexander Maltsev

The main hero of the Russian team at Aquatics 2025 was Alexander Maltsev, who won three golds and a silver medal. Moreover, he had two victories in individual competitions. In the free programme with 14 athletes and a 9-point gap from the silver medallist. And in the technical programme with the participation of 13 athletes and a gap of 10 points from the vice-champion.

What's the point of all this? It brings us back to the events of a year ago. Critics of the BRICS Games noted that synchronised swimmer Alexander Maltsev stood on the podium alone or in the company of Kantinan Adisaisiributra from Thailand, who consistently ranked sixth or seventh in the world rankings. But it is the results of the BRICS Games that will determine the amount of sports scholarships for the next year, as previously, in 2022, these amounts were determined by the Friendship Games and the Spartakiade of the Strongest.

Previously, by receiving medal bonuses at one time, athletes earned a stipend for the next year or two. Last year, when there were no international starts in many sports, the same synchronised swimmer Alexander Maltsev, who stood on the podium in singles, with his victory marked the ‘sum in words’ for the next season. Alas, this is exactly how the Ministry of Sport has written its own regulations for representatives of non-game sports, who are paid not on the basis of the results of championships and national cups, but on the basis of results from international competitions.

Only together we are a force

Tulupova won two silver medals in the group exercise. Shleicher in synchronised jumping, being seventh in the individual competition on the 3-metre springboard and 11th on the tower. Finally, in the swimming pool, Russia won gold in the 4 x 100 freestyle mixed relay and silver in the 4 x 100 metres combined relay.

Speaking of personalities, the swimmers, alas, have only two personal medals. Two silvers — and both in breaststroke, at representatives of the St. Petersburg school of swimming. Kirill Prigoda in 50 metres and Evgenia Chikunova in 200 metres. According to her, our champion was unlucky, she contracted rotavirus, which was brought to Singapore by the Americans. They themselves suffered, for example, they couldn't even qualify for the final of the mixed relay, the one we won. But it also ricocheted to the main star of Russian women's swimming.

Before the final day of the swimming tournament we had almost nothing: gold and three silvers, and you could feel the optimism of the media representatives who were broadcasting directly in Singapore. Every place in the top eight finalists was presented as a victory, including the sixth place of synthesised swimmer Andrei Minakov in the 100-metre butterfly.

Andrei Minakov was not happy with his personal start

Minakov himself was not happy with his performance, commenting on it to the TV crew: “I don't know what to say to you and the country. First of all I blame myself. For six years I have not been able to move from this result. It is already a question whether it is reasonable to stay in swimming after such results”.

Problems need to be eliminated and solved. But for the last six years I have changed coaches and training, worked with different specialists. But no matter how hard I try, I can't move this barrier.

However, then Minakov corrected himself that he was not talking about ending his career, which, of course, would be counterproductive. Ahead are the short water events, the European Championships and the crowning glory of the Olympic season in Los Angeles 2028.

And only the final day of the World Championships began to shower Russian athletes with medal rain to accompany the downpour that hit Kazan. Kliment Kolesnikov's gold and Pavel Samusenko's silver in the 50m backstroke, and Ilya Borodin's bronze in the 400m medley. Finally, the men's 4 by 100 metres combined relay, which initially struggled with the Italians in the final, and in the end beat the French and Americans.

The gold medal was won by the quartet of sprinter Miron Lifintsev, breaststroker Kirill Prigoda, representative of the Kazan Sintez sports club Andrei Minakov (butterfly) and freestyle swimmer Yegor Kornev.

This victory made two-time champion Kolesnikov, who swam in the morning programme, plus two Ivan Kajakin and Girev, and the same Minakov, the only one who swam in both qualification and final.

Another representative of Tatarstan, Sofya Dyakova, had initially prioritised herself, deciding that she would concentrate her energies on the World Junior Championships in Otopeni, Romania. She was now 14th in the 800 metres, remembered for the brilliant performance of legendary American Katie Ledecky and challengers Lani Pallister of Australia and Canada's Summer McIntosh. And in the 400 metres, Dyakova finished in the top ten. The same Anastasia Kirpichnikova, who swapped the Russian team for France, finished in 19th place. In the long run, this is a gold medal at the Junior World Championships, as all those who beat Dyakova in Singapore will not come to Romania. The only thing is that Australia, Germany, China and the USA may have strong third numbers from the youngsters who just didn't qualify for Singapore.