In Briefs: Double 2008 Bronze Medalist Arkady Vyatchanin Training in Florida

On the West Coast, Dave Salo and the Trojan Swim Club have been masterful at attracting some of the world’s best professional swimmers, independently of those moving through their collegiate program, better than any other school-anchored club in the country.

Gregg Troy is getting in on the action as well, as he and the Gator Swim Club now have Russian backstroker Arkady Vyatchanin training in Gainesville.

Vyatchanin, a 27-year old, took bronze medals in both the 100 and 200 backstrokes at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and was at the time the European Record holder in the 100 back from the 2009 World Championships in 52.57.

This is not only big for Vyatchanin’s training, but it’s also potentially huge for Ryan Lochte’s backstroke. After freestyle specialist Peter Vanderkaay joined the Gator Swim Club this past winter, Lochte made huge leaps in his times this past summer. He hasn’t, however, had much to push him in his backstroke training. The Gator Swim Club has some great women’s backstroker (Elizabeth Beisel and Gemma Spofforth, for example), but the men’s corps hasn’t had anyone near Lochte’s level (Omar Pinzon is gone to USC, Marco Loughran is top-25 in the world, but still a huge gap between him and Lochte).

Vyatchanin really seemed to need a change-of-scenery after he failed to even make the Russian World Championship team in 2011. In fact, he’s really struggled since the polyurethane suits went away, though it would be unfair to say that he’s a “suit swimmer”. He had a lot of success before Polyurethane as well, including three golds at the 2006 European Championships.

Vyatchanin swam at the USA Swimming Summer Nationals, so one presumes that he’s been stateside since at least then.