Stanislav Donets is a well-known Russian swimmer who achieved his main achievements in short-swimming pools. Here he became a ten-time European champion, won the world championships many times. However, on long water, his successes were much more modest; he could not impose a struggle on the strongest swimmers in the USA and Australia, hopelessly losing them speed.
Hopeless pupil
Many swimming enthusiasts wonder where the swimmer Stanislav Donets went. He did not disappear anywhere and continues to play at national tournaments, at the stages of the World Cup, but today he loses the competition in the national team to the new champion of the world, Yevgeny Rylov, and is not so noticeable. In general, Stanislav Donets burst into the world of swimming as swiftly and unexpectedly as he disappeared from it. He was born in Ulyanovsk in 1983 and modestly engaged in swimming from primary school, training with his own parents and not showing outstanding results.
Swimming is a sport where talents are revealed already at a young age, but Stas at the age of sixteen still went as a candidate for master of sports and did not even dream of major tournaments. However, his parents, Olga and Yuri Raikhman, continued to believe in their son and did not give up where others would have expelled a non-good pupil for lack of prospects for a long time.
First victories
After twenty years in the life of Stanislav, serious changes occurred, and his business in swimming moved off the ground. He began to actively progress and already in 2005 became a member of the national team, becoming one of the leaders in swimming on his back. In 2007, Stanislav Donets performed for the first time in his life at a major tournament, which was the European Short Water Championship. Here, he immediately took gold at a distance of 100 meters on his back, to which he added silver in the two-hundred meter race and another silver in the combined relay.
A year later, he participated in the championship of the continent already in the pools with a standard fifty-meter track. Here, his successes were more modest, he was content with one gold medal in the relay, failing to take awards in individual forms. Stanislav Donets once again demonstrated his best qualities in short-swimming pools. At the 2008 European Championships, a native of Dimitrovgrad took all three gold medals in the individual disciplines, and also added silver to them in the combined relay.
Triumphs and Falls
In 2008, Stanislav Donets earned a ticket to the Olympics in Beijing. Despite the fact that he showed his best results at distances of 100 and 200 m, the athlete was left without awards, having failed to overcome the semi-final barrier. Donets was able to rehabilitate for Olympic failures at the next European Championships in short water, where he had no equal. Stanislav won all personal disciplines and helped the relay team win the final race, thus leaving Istanbul with four main awards.
The athlete himself admitted that it is much more comfortable for him to swim in pools with short lanes. This was due to the fact that in his native Dimitrovgrad there were no swimming complexes with fifty-meter lanes. Hence the specific technique, which included swims with more turns and segments under water than at standard distances.
In 2013, the native received a serious shoulder injury and was forced to take a break in his career. Stanislav Donets and his wife devoted this time to the device of their personal lives, and at the same time the athlete underwent a number of operations, after which he recovered one and a half years. After returning to the sport, there was no longer such a hail of gold awards, but in 2014, Stanislav was able to win bronze at the World Championships in short water. The swimmer himself said that this award was of particular importance to him, and he valued it more than any other gold.
Stanislav Donets and his wife
Photos of the titled athlete together with his wife show the audience happy young people, and there is every reason for this. Not so long ago, they became the parents of the son of Andrei, whom they had been waiting for so long.
Spouse Stanislav is five years younger than him, at one time she received an education in public administration, but so far she is fully committed to the family. Alina Donets says she is not going to stop on one child and is ready to give her husband a daughter.