“Americans will win all the gold” – Pankratov on the open category for transgender people at the Swimming World Cup

There won’t be many open swimming World Cup debuts, and American swimmers will win all the gold medals, according to two-time Olympic champion Denis Pankratov.

World Aquatics previously banned transgender people from women’s competitions and created an open category, which is included for the first time in the October World Cup competition schedule in Berlin.

– Here the question is that if there are such people, they can talk. Again, this is most likely done for countries where there is an overabundance of people at nationals, and now they need new horizons. In most countries, overall, the number of participants involved in professional swimming is not enough to cover all the distances. It’s important, interesting, necessary for Americans, maybe Australians, maybe there are people in Europe who want to talk. We’re not just talking about transgender people here, but those who work out and swim as well. And it’s not a lot of people.

– So you don’t think that in Berlin it will be a large category in terms of application?

— I think the Americans will win all the gold. With which we congratulate them. They will finally win the team classification again,” Pankratov told .

The World Cup stop in Berlin will take place from October 6-8.