As mentioned before, Russian record holder and Olympian Anastasia Aksenova is currently trying out training in Vágur, here in the Faroe Islands, now almost for two weeks. She competed at a local meet last Sunday, beating our record holder in the 50 freestyle with a time of 26.26 against Guðrun’s 26.55. And she endured our biggest storm since 1988 last Thursday, with roofs blowing off houses and stuff.
Asked by local media Suðurrás, she says she decided to try out Vágur because of coach Jón Bjarnason, who in her view has adopted more innovative training methods than she is used to from back in Russia. She says it is good to be in Vágur, and finds the training environment exciting. To her kudos, Jón said in local radio here at noon, that he sees improved speed in the pool from everyone including the boys, now after ‘Nastya’ joined them. Aksenova will leave for Russia and the Salnikov Cup now when Pál and the rest of us leave for the Europeans in Szczecin, Poland, and will hopefully then come back to train again in Vágur in January, towards the Russian Olympic selection meet in April.
Suðurrás has also spoken with Pál, who has OK expectations for the upcoming European Short Course Championships in Szczecin next week. He is in extremely good form, and is also really happy with the training splits that he is able to produce in the pool. They are gunning for a time in the 1500 that should be good enough to win a medal, but let’s see how that goes, he says.
After the Europeans, Pál and Jón will leave for the Duel in the Pool in Atlanta, Georgia, to compete for the Europeans against USA.
Picture courtesy of Suðurrás.
1 Comment
Warning, a lot might have been lost in translation, from Russian to English to Faroese and then back to English :-P