See Also: Decoding the S1-S14 Classification System.
A day after losing the medal count lead to Ukraine, Russia struck back on day 5 with 4 world records and a pile of golds to take back the top of the medal table.
Viacheslav Emeliantsev led the way, breaking the 200 IM SM14 world record twice in one day. Emeliantsev was 2:09.83 in the morning and 2:08.98 in the final to smash past the previous record, a 2:11.87 from Dutchman Marc Evers.
That comes two days after Emeliantsev broke the 200 free world record in both heats and finals as well.
One event after that 200 IM, Russia’s Valeriia Shabalina took her second gold and second world record of the meet so far, winning the women’s 200 IM SM14 in 2:21.33. That’s almost a second faster than the previous mark, held by Great Britain’s Bethany Firth from earlier this year.
The Russians also broke a world record in the night’s relay event, the 34-point men’s 4×100 free relay. Russia went 3:48.10 to break a 5-year-old record held by Great Britain.
Britain lost a couple of world records, but broke a pair as well. Most notable was Oliver Hynd, who broke his older brother Sam‘s world record in the 400 freestyle S8. Oliver Hynd was 4:24.32; the old record was 4:26.08 from 2010.
And in the women’s 200 IM SM6, Eleanor Simmonds broke a world record while nabbing her fourth medal of the Games. Her 3:01.02 crushed the world record she already held at 3:04.07.
The other world record to fall on day 5: China’s Pan Shiyn tied the world mark in the men’s 50 fly S7, going 29.49.
The current medal table with two days of competition remaining:
Rank | Federation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
1 | Russian Fed. | 21 | 13 | 11 | 45 |
2 | Ukraine | 17 | 17 | 8 | 42 |
3 | United States | 11 | 6 | 7 | 24 |
4 | Brazil | 8 | 6 | 1 | 15 |
5 | New Zealand | 7 | 4 | 2 | 13 |
6 | Australia | 6 | 6 | 9 | 21 |
7 | Great Britain | 5 | 11 | 8 | 24 |
8 | Netherlands | 5 | 3 | 3 | 11 |
9 | Belarus | 5 | 1 | 0 | 6 |
10 | China | 4 | 6 | 8 | 18 |
11 | Spain | 3 | 6 | 8 | 17 |
12 | Germany | 2 | 4 | 2 | 8 |
13 | Mexico | 2 | 2 | 5 | 9 |
14 | Norway | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
15 | Korea | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
16 | Canada | 1 | 3 | 4 | 8 |
17 | Italy | 1 | 3 | 2 | 6 |
18 | Colombia | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
19 | South Africa | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
20 | Cyprus | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Thailand | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
22 | Japan | 0 | 4 | 1 | 5 |
23 | Poland | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
24 | France | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
25 | Azerbaijan | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
Israel | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
Sweden | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
Vietnam | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
29 | Czech Republic | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Iceland | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
31 | Greece | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
Kazakhstan | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | |
33 | Hungary | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
34 | Austria | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Croatia | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
Ireland | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
Turkey | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
Uzbekistan | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
how about the ukranian who won the 100 fly in s10 who in 2010 went 2:03 in the 200 IM (won that event the other day too) at european championships for able bodied swimmers and just last april went 52.2 in the 100 fly but is now disabled with no explanation? word is he isn’t even shaved for this meet, just swimming well enough to win, but not fast enough to raise any red flags. My guess? he’ll blow everyone out of the water in rio and actually try in his races but by then it’ll be too late.