Morozov At Home On Top Of The Podium After Two Golds And A European Record In Glasgow

European Short-Course Championships

Glasgow, Day 1 Finals and Semi-Finals

Vladimir Morozov experienced a whirlwind end to the first day of the European Short-Course Championships in Glasgow when two races in 13 minutes resulted in two gold medals and a European record.

The Russian shocked himself when he set a new continental mark of 25.51secs in the 50m breaststroke before he returned to unleash a thundering 20.25 to anchor the 4x50m freestyle relay squad home in 1:22.92.

There was then the small matter of standing on the top step of the podium at two medal ceremonies in a row before he stopped to speak to a raft of media outlets.

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The 27-year-old was taken aback by his time in the breaststroke in which he cut 0.11secs from the previous record held since 2017 by Italian Fabio Scozzoli, who finished joint third alongside Arno Kamminga of the Netherlands.

While he won silver over 100m breaststroke at the 2018 World Short-Course Championships in Guangzhou, China, Morozov is best known as a freestyle specialist with Olympic, world and European medals.

So, why breaststroke?

He told Swimming World: “The breaststroke because I was racing it at the ISL: I raced with Adam Peaty and all the other top breaststrokers and I thought I could maybe compete in something new. I have been swimming for 10 years internationally and it’s good to do something new.”

There will be no switch to the long-course though, he smiled. “No way. The turns are my strength and there are no turns in the 50 long-course.”

Morozov has been racing in the International Swimming League and on the World Cup circuits in recent weeks while training alone in Moscow or with Dave Salo at USC.

He was a member of Team Iron which failed to make the inaugural ISL finale in Las Vegas from 20-21 December.

Morozov has no doubt ISL has shown the way ahead for the sport, saying: “It is definitely something new, it’s the next step in swimming. It’s something we envisioned also.

“So it is not like just one race a day where you have to focus and make sure that race on that day at that moment you do well. Instead you have four or five races a day and you just have fun racing. It’s a whole different concept.

“The main difference is that it was a team competition, it’s not just individual. You are actually engaged towards the meet for the whole session, you see who has scored what and who is swimming well because you are in the competition the whole time rather than just for that one race.”

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