Courtesy: LEN Media
The young Russian divers and synchronised swimmers dominated the first week of the junior European Championships in Finland. They captured nine titles apiece in Helsinki and in Tampere.
The Russians won the title contest against the rest of the Europe at the diving event as they clinched nine in Helsinki while the other nations could get eight altogether. Among the juniors, they were really dominant in the girls’ events, Uliana Kliueva and Vitaliia Koroleva swept all golds on offer in the 1m, 3m and 3m synchro.
In the boy’s field Ruslan Ternovoi’s name should be noted as he is set for future stardom. He captured both 10m titles, in the individual event he enjoyed a 73-point winning margin while receiving a couple of 10s from the judges for his most difficult dive.
The Brits amassed 11 medals, in the younger boys’ events they earned two individual titles and the Germans also did a fine job by winning three golds including the ‘Jump Event’, a new format involving 3-4 divers per team, tested once again with success.
There were thrilling finals as well, among the junior boys the Spanish duo of Matthew Wide and Adrian Abadia won the 3m synchro with a tiny gap of 0.36 points (the top three were inside 1.36 points) while the 1m final saw Wade coming ahead of his fellow by 0.70 points.
In the synchro pool in Tampere the Russians’ traditional winning series continued. They clinched all but one title – they didn’t enter the figure competition so that gold landed in Belorussia, otherwise the discipline’s empire ruled the events.
Varvara Subbotina was a cut above the rest once more: she is destined to reach the highest heights. Already having made her name at international senior meets, Subbotina performed her magic in the solo again and got the best score of the entire meet, above 94 points.
Ukraine came runner-up in seven events while it was great to see that two young boys, Mikhail Vasilev (RUS) and Vasileos Gkortsilas (GRE) already joined the sport and they earned their first medals with their respective partners in the mixed duet.
The junior events will continue with the swimming meet in Helsinki, it kicks off on 4 July – you can follow the action live on the LEN website.
Medal tables
Diving
RUS 9 1 4
GER 3 1 1
GBR 2 3 6
ESP 2 3 1
ITA 1 2 1
UKR 0 4 0
FIN 0 1 1
ROU 0 1 0
SUI 0 1 0
SWE 0 0 2
NED 0 0 1
Synchronized swimming
RUS 9 0 0
BLR 1 0 0
UKR 0 7 0
GRE 0 2 0
ITA 0 1 3
ESP 0 0 5
For detailed results, visit www.len.eu