World Aquatics Championships

The Russians won two gold and two bronze medals on the first day of the World Aquatics Championships, which started yesterday in Barcelona. Evgeny Koshkarov won, and Vladimir Dyatchin showed the third result at a distance of 5 km in open water. Dmitry Sautin and Alexander Dobroskok excelled in synchronized diving from a three-meter springboard. And Evgenia Olshevskaya and Svetlana Timoshinina took third place in the same synchronized diving from a ten-meter platform.
Traditionally, swimmers and female swimmers began to compete in open water. This time - in the port of Barcelona. And also by tradition, the Russians were among the favorites at both five-kilometer distances. After all, both Russian representatives - Evgeny Koshkarov and Vladimir Dyatchin - are world champions. And the leader of the women's team, Ekaterina Seliverstova, has already won in Barcelona - at the Spanish championship (albeit at a ten-kilometer distance).
The conditions, as the swimmers later stated, were almost ideal for the competition: air temperature - 35-36 degrees, water temperature - 24-25. True, the sea, although warm (and clean), was restless. “Besides the waves, I considered Vladimir Dyatchin, to be honest, my main rival,” admitted the newly crowned champion Evgeniy Koshkarov after the finish. “We train together. In the city pool of Lipetsk. Open water, you know, most of the year is too cold here. I’m glad, that I managed to get ahead of him... I stayed in the main group, but a kilometer before the finish I took the lead and never lost the lead.” Evgeniy Koshkarov has this second world “gold”. A student of the Lipetsk Pedagogical Institute won his first at a ten-kilometer distance last year in Egypt. This time Vladimir Dyatchin was content with bronze.
Muscovite Ekaterina Seliverstova, alas, took only fourth place in a tough underwater fight, in which both arms and legs were used. A consolation for her can be the fact that the main favorite, Dutchwoman Edin van Diet, took only eighth place. And another favorite won - Italian Viola Valli, who excelled at the same distance at the previous world championship in Japan.
In diving, Evgenia Olshevskaya and Svetlana Timoshinina initially had little chance of beating the Chinese Lishi Lao and Tian Li. They already performed almost a miracle. “Bronze” is a good result for the Russians. After the preliminary jumps, they generally took seventh place.
The men's half of the team performed better in the diving pool. The leader of the Russian national team, Dmitry Sautin, and his young partner Alexander Dobroskok were considered the main favorites. It was they who won the super final of the Grand Prix series - the main start for jumpers before the World Championships. True, there were no Chinese duets at this tournament. But they came to Spain. As always - with new products. They let them down. The Chinese performed two new jumps not entirely cleanly. Sautin and Dobroskok, like three years ago in Sydney, demonstrated amazing stability - both in the preliminary jumps and in the finals.
And before the start of the championship, another solid “prize” was won - the right to host the 2007 World Aquatics Championships. Again, in a bitter struggle with the capital of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi, and the Brazilian Rio de Janeiro, it was won by the Australian Melbourne. This is what the executive committee of the International Swimming Federation decided. According to the Australians, $70 million can be earned from holding it.
ALEXEY J-ZHUK

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 121/P dated July 14, 2003, p. 16

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Water sports

The Russians jumped over the Chinese