Ruta Meilutyte To Participate In The 2024 World Short Course Championships

Olympian Ruta Meilutyte is heading to her fifth World Short Course Championships. The 27-year-old swimmer will join the 12 swimmers selected to represent Lithuania at the 2024 World Short Course held in Budapest, Hungary. She will compete in her marquee events, the 50-meter and 100-meter breaststroke, joining the four-woman roster including Kotryna Teterevkova, Smilte Plytnykaite, and Justine Murdock.

So far this year, Ruta won the gold in the 50 breaststroke in 29.40, claiming her third consecutive win in the event at the World Championships. Last year, she set a world record in the event, winning the race in 29.16. Following this, at the Paris Olympics, she failed to make it to the finals after finishing 11th in the 100-meter breaststroke semis. As, five months before the Games, Ruta had undergone a surgery in her left foot due to “damage to the first metatarsal.” Now the swimmer will conclude the 2024 season competing in the short-course event in December.

Ruta Meilutyte Eyeing Her Fifth World Short Course Championships

After claiming the gold medal in women’s 100-meter breastroke at the 2012 Olympics, Ruta Meilutyte, aged 15, proved she can carry the momentum in short-course pools as well. A few months after her Olympic win, Ruta made her debut at the Short Course championships in Istanbul, Turkey, claiming two gold medals in the 100-meter and 50-meter breaststroke.

But, following the 2018 World Short Course Championships, held in Hangzhou, China, where she claimed a silver in the 50-meter breaststroke, the swimmer’s former coach, Dave Salo, announced Ruta is taking a short “leave from swimming.”

However, during her break from the sport, the swimmer missed three drug tests over a year. This resulted in the FINA Anti-Doping Panel announcing a two-year suspension for the Olympic gold medalist (led by July 21, 2019, till July 20, 2021).

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Following this, at the 2022 Short Course Championships held in Melbourne, Australia, Ruta made an impressive comeback in the 50-meter breaststroke with a new world record. On day five of the championships, she placed first in the 50-meter semifinals in 28.37. Taking off .19, she lowered the previous record of 28.56 set by Jamaican Alia Atkinson in 2018. So far, Ruta has clinched four gold and three silver medals at four World Short Course Championships.

Ruta Meilutyte has maintained constant outings in the 50-meter breaststroke in the previous few seasons. However, the athlete may also redeem herself in the 100-meter breaststroke, her Olympic gold winning event. At the 2022 championships, the swimmer faced a disqualification in the 100 breaststroke final event, despite clocking a time of 1:02.91 in the finals. As per the FINA, the “disqualification came for a double dolphin kick off the start.” Ruta’s last win in the 100-meter event came in 2014 at the Doha Short Course Championships, claiming silver in 1:02.46.