Russian swimmers claim 3 golds at short-course world championships

Russian swimmers have taken a mounting haul of medals at the short-course swimming world championships in China, winning five awards on Friday – three of which were gold.

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The winning pace for the Russian squad was set by Kliment Kolesnikov, who triumphed in the men’s 100m medley event with a time of 50.63 seconds.

Russia’s second gold of the day came from Evgeny Rylov, who pipped US opponent Ryan Murphy by just 0.05 seconds in a nail-biting 50m backstroke final.

“It was a good race. That’s the best of the best in that field and to come out second was a great achievement,” Murphy said.

Russia’s 18-year old talent Kolesnikov, who also took part in the race, finished fourth and set a new world junior record in the process.

Completing Russia’s impressive run on Friday was Vladimir Morozov, who grabbed gold in the men’s 50m freestyle final.

Vladimir Morozov © REUTERS / Aly Song

That result took Russia’s medal count at the championships to 10.

“I haven’t won an individual medal since 2012,” Morozov said after his golden finish.

“Now I’m really happy. I competed against strong opponents and it was not easy to win today.”

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Earlier, Russian men’s relay teams claimed two silver medals in 4x200m and 4x50m events.

On Thursday, Kirill Prigoda opened Russia’s gold medal tally by smashing the world record in the men’s 200 breaststroke final, registering a time of two minutes, 0.16 seconds.