Olympic champion Ilchenko regretted that Russians did not participate in open water swimming at the Paris Games

The first Olympic champion in the history of 10-kilometer open water swimming, Larisa Ilchenko, in an interview with , said that she regrets the absence of Russians at the Paris Games in this sport.

Sharon van Rauwendaal of the Netherlands won her second Olympic gold medal in the 10km open water race on Thursday.

— Van Rauwendaal became a double Olympic champion. How would you assess his achievement?

– Congratulations to her! She is a hard worker, well done – she deserves the victory! I remember how Sharon trained during difficult times when there was COVID-19 and she had to train in a three-meter-wide framed pool. And she still found the strength not to stop training, but to continue preparing. In Paris, the competition was quite tough; the current Olympic champion and multiple world champion Ana Marcela Cunha competed. It was a very worthy battle. It is a pity that our athletes were not seen at the Games.

— A theoretical question. What could the Russians claim in Paris if they went to the Games?

— Our sport is very difficult to predict; it is not classical swimming, where you can count on seconds. For example, we understand that Evgenia Chikunova swam the 100-meter breaststroke in a 50-meter pool and showed a better result than the Olympic champion from Paris, although there is a psychological point here: each athlete approaches the final at the World Championships differently. and the Olympic Games are sometimes urgent.

And in open water it is impossible to predict anything. The conditions are new every time: current, water temperature, contact wrestling, which sometimes disrupts the rhythm. Given the strong competition among women and men in open water swimming, we can only assume and hope that our guys will be able to compete somewhere. It is stupid to try to compare even the results posted at the Russian Championships with the times of the World Championships and the Olympic Games in this discipline – completely different conditions.

—Would you do anything to compete for medals?

“I am absolutely sure that the guys would do everything possible to compete for medals. They are motivated, our team is young. Unfortunately, few athletes are the long-term backbone. Every year a large number of children come to play this sport, but few stay for a long time,” Ilchenko told .

Russian participants have been suspended from international competitions in many sports due to the political situation. At the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, which are taking place these days, 15 Russians have been declared neutral.

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