200 m breaststroke, women

What to remember

Kazan, April 2023: at the Russian Championships, swum in a long course pool at the Palace of Water Sports, Evgeniia Chikunova clocked 2 min 17.55 s in the 200 m breaststroke on April 21. On April 19, at the same meet, she had already won the 100 m breaststroke in 1:04.92, the fastest time by a woman that year up to that point.

Born in Saint Petersburg, Chikunova is a breaststroke specialist coached by Vitta Novozhilova, an Honored Coach of Russia. At the Tokyo 2020 Olympics she swam the 100 m and 200 m breaststroke and the 4 × 100 m medley relay. The 200 m breaststroke had been her event as a junior too: in 2019 she broke the short course junior world record in 2:17.71, then improved it twice in 2021, to 2:17.57 and then 2:16.88.

The men's 200 m breaststroke has been held at the Games since 1908 and the women's race since 1924. Both have been on the World Aquatics Championships programme since the first edition in 1973. In the long course pool, the men's record belongs to Japan's Shin Ohashi.