Vitaly Vasilyev
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Vitaly Vasilyev |
| National team |
 Kyrgyzstan |
| Born |
5 June 1973 Bishkek, Kirghiz SSR, Soviet Union |
| Height | 1.91 m (6 ft 3 in) |
| Weight | 83 kg (183 lb) |
| Sport | |
| Sport | Swimming |
| Strokes | Freestyle |
Vitaly Vasilyev (Russian: Виталий Васильев; born June 5, 1973) is a Kyrgyz swimmer, who specialized in sprint freestyle events.[1] He is a two-time Olympian (1996 and 2008), and a former Kyrgyzstan record holder in the 50 and 100 m freestyle.
Vasilyev made his first Kyrgyz team at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. There, he failed to reach a top 16 final in the 50 m freestyle, finishing in fifty-second place with a time of 24.54.[2] He also placed eighteenth, as a member of the Kyrgyzstan team, in the 4 × 100 m freestyle (3:30.62), and seventeenth in the 4 × 200 m freestyle (8:00.00).[3][4]
Twelve years after competing in his last Olympics, Vasilyev qualified for his second Kyrgyzstan team, as a 35-year-old, at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. He cleared a FINA B-standard entry time of 23.11 seconds from the Kazakhstan Open Swimming Championships in Almaty.[5] He challenged seven other swimmers on the seventh heat, including two-time Olympians Jevon Atkinson of Jamaica and Joshua Laban of the Virgin Islands. For the second time, Vasilyev rounded out the field to last place by less than 0.26 of a second behind Laban, lowering his Olympic time to 24.02 seconds. Vasilyev failed to advance into the semifinals, as he placed fifty-fifth out of 92 swimmers in the preliminary heats.[6]
References
- ↑ "Vitaly Vasilyev". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved 13 December 2012.
- ↑ "Atlanta 1996: Aquatics (Swimming) – Men's 50m Freestyle Heat 4" (PDF). Atlanta 1996. LA84 Foundation. p. 35. Retrieved 8 April 2013.
- ↑ "Atlanta 1996: Aquatics (Swimming) – Men's 4×100m Freestyle Relay Heat 3" (PDF). Atlanta 1996. LA84 Foundation. p. 51. Retrieved 28 April 2013.
- ↑ "Atlanta 1996: Aquatics (Swimming) – Men's 4×200m Freestyle Relay Heat 2" (PDF). Atlanta 1996. LA84 Foundation. p. 51. Retrieved 28 April 2013.
- ↑ "Olympic Cut Sheet – Men's 50m Freestyle" (PDF). Swimming World Magazine. p. 2. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
- ↑ "Men's 50m Freestyle Heat 7". Beijing 2008. NBC Olympics. Retrieved 13 December 2012.