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Prilukov Has Gone The Distance
Jun 1, 2010 - Craig Lord
Yuri Prilukov, the Russian distance ace, has retired from the sport after having failed last month to make the cut for the European Championships in Budapest, according to reports from Russia.
The most successful Russian distance swimmer since the 1980s heights of the legendary Vladimir Salnikov, Prilukov goes with six world championship medals and 14 European medals to his credit. At Olympic Games, his fate was to be locked off the podium by small but decisive margins. He finished fourth in both 2004 and 2008.
Prilukov earned the respect of his rivals down the years. In a recent interview for SwimNews, Olympic bronze (2004, 1500m) and silver (2008, marathon) medallist David Davies, when asked to name three of his biggest opponents and say why they stood out, replied: "Yuri Prilukov: I raced him from a really young age and at European Junior championships. The first time I thought 'my God, he's a hard Russian ma' - he has that look about him and we had some really hard races. He's a really, really tough guy ... he has a 'Rocky IV' Russian guy look about him, a tough man to be in the call room with. I couldn't speak Russian and I thought he couldn't speak English so for five years we just smiled and shook hands, then I heard him speaking English to Mateusz Sawrymowicz (POL) and said 'oh, right you can speak English, and we got to know each other a little better after that."
Yury Aleksandrovich Prilukov was born on June 14 in Sverdlovsk, the birthplace of Alexander Popov. A five-time European champion long-course and eight-time European champion short-course, Prilukov also won five World shorty-course crowns and set three European records. At the 2004 Summer Olympics Prilukov finished sixth in the 400 meters freestyle and fourth in the 1500 metres freestyle.
In a recent interview with SwimNews, Andrei Vorontsov, head coach to Russia, noted that Prilukov had not made the grade for Budapest after having only returned to training in early 2010 following a period of reflection in which the freestyler pondered the question "to be or not to be" a swimmer.
Prilukov's treasury:
