World Championships: First Medal ‘Very Emotional’ for Kyrgyzstan’s Denis Petrashov
Denis Petrashov isn’t given to emotions, he says. But ascending the podium after winning bronze in the men’s 100 breaststroke Monday at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships did the trick.
So did realizing he was the first swimmer from Kyrgyzstan to win a medal at a World Aquatics Championships.
“I’m not an emotional person, but this is very emotional for me,” Petrashov said. “First medal for my country at the worlds, so very proud and happy. I was not expecting this at all. I had no idea where I was in the race. I saw the turn, we were close to each other, but I didn’t see anything.”
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It’s been a long and deserved climb for Petrashov, coming from a country without an Olympic-distance pool via Louisville to most of the last decade on the international circuit. This summer has been a watershed for Petrashov – and in retrospect, pay-off for years of progress.
He won gold at the World University Games in the 100 breast on July 18 in Berlin, Germany, going 59.32 in the final. Ten days later and a continent away, he lowered his national record to 59.20 in semifinals, then took it under 59 seconds in 58.88 for gold.
Qin Haiyang won gold in 58.32 in the final on Monday in Singapore, with Olympic gold medalist Nicolo Martinenghi in the silver position. A DQ to Kirill Prigoda, who went 58.53 to lead prelims, helped. But that doesn’t take away what the three-time Olympian achieved.
“It’s just training. Consistency,” Petrashov said. “No secrets, no nothing, nothing special.”
This has been brewing for a while for Petrashov. He made an Olympic semifinal for the first time in Paris, finishing 14th in the 200 breast in his third Games. His high-water mark internationally was a fourth-place finish in the World Short Course Championships in 2024. Short of a DQ in the 200 breast at the 2023 World Championships in Fukuoka, Petrashov finished in the top 20 in the other breaststroke events at the three Worlds held in 2022, 2023 and 2024, his best finish ninth in the 50 in Doha.
The ability of Kyrgyzstan to pop up with an elite swimmer isn’t crazy. The former Soviet satellite republic competed at its first Olympics in 1996. There’s a parallel to be drawn between Petrashov and Dmitriy Balandin, the 2016 Olympic champion from Kazakhstan, coincidentally in the 200 breast.
The 25-year-old Petrashov hopes the tangibility of a medal is a sign of more to come.
“This was the final. I had nothing to lose,” he said. “If you have a lane, you have a chance. It means a lot. … Hopefully, we’ll get more resources for swimming. We don’t have an Olympic-sized pool in Kyrgyzstan. Hopefully this is a big step to more things.”
