Exactly two years ago, in May 2021, swimmer Anastasia Gorbenko, then 17 years old, recorded her first significant achievement in her adult career. She was crownedEuropean champion, when she got ahead of the British Ivy Wood and the legendary world record holder Katinka Husso in a particularly tight final. In the final, she broke the Israeli record with a heroic performance of 2:09.99 minutes. a record that has not been broken since. until yesterday (Fourth).
As someone who was there in the pool in Hungary at the same time, you could see through the tears (hers and mine) that the performance was obviously not perfect. It would not seem like the ceiling of her ability and it was clear that there is still room to improve the fast time itself. It did take two years (less than five days if you want to be precise), but it seems that this improvement in the paste is starting to come now, and for good reason.
Watch the Israeli record of Anastasia Gorbenko from Barcelona:
Gorbenko began working this year under Canadian coach Tom Rushton, who works in collaboration with David Marsh on her professional program. It doesn’t matter if you define him as the coach of the Israeli national team, a mission coach or any other definition. Bottom line, he is the one under whom the Israeli European champion trains, alongside one of the best swimmers in the world, Shivon Hohi.
At Rushton’s, Gorbenko experienced training that she had never done before, mainly in terms of volume/mileage, while two altitude camps (in Spain and the USA) that she did during the year also seemed to have their effect. – 200 freestyle, it’s not only the volume that increases, but also the pace. “After a professional decision by me together with coach Tom Rushton, from the beginning of 2023 we focused more on training and less on competitions,” she said yesterday Gorbenko After breaking the record: “I feel that the hard work I’ve done in the last few months is paying off.”
Anastasia Gorbenko on the podium in Barcelona Photo: Swimming Association
The effect of training volume on endurance can be seen in the 200 individual medley especially in Gorbenko’s last 50 last night in the victory in Barcelona, rowing style. By simply looking at the comparison of the times between Gorbenko’s record in 2021 and the new record yesterday, it can be seen that the main difference lies there, an improvement of 8 tenths of a second, while the backstroke, for example, was even slightly slower.
Full time comparison:
| May 2021 | May 2023 | |
| butterfly | 28.26 | 28.14 |
| back | 1:00:88 (32.62) | 1:01:24 (33.10) |
| chest | 1:38.66 (37.78) | 1:38.94 (37.70) |
| rowing | 2:09:99 (31.33) | 2:09:47 (30.53) |
In the two years that have passed since the previous record was set, not only Gorbenko has changed, the entire 200 medley has undergone a real revolution. If in the past it was a race dominated by one swimmer, Katinka Hoso, into the vacuum she left (and at a good time for the pregnancy, of course) quite a few high-level swimmers entered, making the field more crowded than ever.
Gorbenko’s result last night, for example, is only the eighth best in the world in 2023, and this is even before the big competitions in the summer, first of all the World Championship. At the top of the table is of course the young Canadian Summer McIntosh, who set 2:06.89 minutes at the end of March and began to approach Katinka’s rare record (2:06.12 minutes), but next to her two other swimmers dropped from 2:09 minutes this year.
Anastasia Gorbenko Photo: Simona Castervillari, courtesy of the Swimming Association
The full ranking of the ointment in 2023:
1. Summer McIntosh (Canada) – 2:06.89 minutes
2. Kylie McKeon (Australia) – 2:07.19 minutes
3. Yu Yiting (China) – 2:08.34 minutes
4. Sydney Pickram (Canada) – 2:08.61 minutes
5. Merit Stenberchen (Netherlands) – 2:09.16 minutes
6. Jenna Forster (Australia) – 2:09.32 minutes
7. Katie Shanahan (Great Britain) – 2:09.40 minutes
8. Anastasia Gorbenko (Israel) – 2:09.47 minutes
8. Abby Wood (Great Britain) – 2:09.47 minutes
You don’t need to be a great swimming expert to understand the implications of this rating. If in the Olympic Games in Tokyo Entering the final was 2:10.59 minutes and getting on the podium closed with 2:09.04 minutes, it seems that according to this pace, in Paris it will be a different opera. The world top has leveled up, and it is good to see that the top Israeli swimmer is adjusting herself and is also leveling up accordingly, when it seems that this is only the beginning.
Daria at the right pace
Another record that was set yesterday and naturally stood in the shadow of the one set by Gorbenko, was the Israeli youth record that Daria Golovati swam in the 400 freestyle. This is the second time in four days that Golovati has improved the record, and this time she set it at 4:14.94 minutes. This is an improvement of another second to the 4:15.99 she set on Sunday in the first competition of the Mara Nostrome round in Cana.
Daria Golovati Photo: Simona Castervillari, courtesy of the Swimming Association
It seems that Golovati, like Gorbenko, is benefiting a lot from the new training program she experienced under Tom Rushton, and of course from swimming alongside the Olympic runner-up, in combination with working under coach Meir Levia in her home association Hapoel Bat Yam. The young swimmer entered this season with a personal record of 4:21.22 minutes in this swim, in the competition in Westmont about a month ago she improved almost three seconds to her personal best, on Sunday she offset another 2.5 seconds and now another second fell off the balance.
Although these are still not world-class results in this race, since last year’s world final for comparison was 4:06.44 minutes, however, the trend of improvement in a race that should not be her main race (it mainly focuses on the half distance), certainly bodes well. And remember, she is only 17 years old and it seems that her (pink) future is still ahead of her.
