~ The Netherlands’ Marrit Steenbergen and Russia’s Egor Kornev both clinched their third victories of the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup at the Aquatic Palace in Baku to top the overall rankings after the first stop of the Silk Road Tour.
"VAN" (Sports Desk - 04.10.2026) :: South Africa’s Pieter Coetze and China’s Yu Yiting also set continental records on the third night of exhilarating competition in front of a passionate crowd in the Azerbaijan capital.
Kornev and Steenbergen win again to top overall rankings
Kornev’s third gold of his Baku haul came in the Men's 50m Butterfly with a time of 21.64, following on from his World Record-matching performance in the 100m Freestyle yesterday.
Teong Tzen Wei of Singapore was second in 22.01, with China's Chen Juner third in 22.24. Australia’s Cameron McEvoy clocked 22.46 and had to settle for seventh place.
With three golds and one silver from Baku, Kornev topped the men’s overall rankings with 59.3 points, followed by Luke Barr (CLB, 57.4) and Coetze (55.6).
Steenbergen amassed the same medal collection from Baku, claiming gold in the Women's 100m Freestyle and silver in the 200m Individual Medley to finish as the top-ranked woman with 58.2 points, ahead of Belgium's Roos Vanotterdijk (54.2) and China's Yu Yiting (53.7).
Reflecting on her golden week in Baku, Steenbergen said, "It has been so much fun and I'm really happy with my races. I've done some things I don't do very often, so I'm really happy with how that's gone. I'm so close to my PBs and I'm really curious to see how I can improve ahead of the next weekend.
"The standard here has been really good, with good races. I'm happy to be here, especially in the pool. It's a great pool and it's good to be back here after 11 years."
Coetze and Yu break continental records
Coetze went one better than his 50m Backstroke silver on day two by winning over 100m in 49.11, setting an African Record. He also won 200m Backstroke gold on day one.
“I'm very happy with that. I just wanted to get the win and it's a good time too, so I'll take it,” Coetze said.
“I got some feedback, I'm going to look at the videos and tweak what I need to tweak, and hopefully I can improve."
Russia's Pavel Samusenko was second in 49.24, with Shaine Casas of the USA third in 49.89.
Samusenko was upbeat about his progress.
“This time shows I am going in the right way and the World Championships in Beijing will be awesome,” he said.
Yu closed the first stop of the Silk Road Tour with an Asian Record of 2:02.80 in the Women's 200m Individual Medley to secure her bronze podium finish, storming home ahead of Steenbergen in second (2:05.09), and Great Britain's Abbie Wood in third (2:05.69).
“It was a good start for me for the series, the 2:05 is definitely a nice place to start,” Wood said.
“I was a bit off my best but I haven't been back in the season long, so it's really promising. I think I'll get race fit as I go on.”
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