By Zach Waltz
Assistant Sports Editor
Junior Vatslav Lets and sophomore Viacheslav Shchukin are two crucial swimmers on this year’s men’s swimming and diving team.
Last year at the Atlantic 10 Championships, Lets was named the Most Outstanding Performer, and Shchukin was named Most Outstanding Rookie. Lets finished the meet with eight gold medals — an A-10 record. Shchukin managed to break the A-10 100-yard freestyle record at the meet as well.
Head Coach Sean McNamee said the two Russian swimmers bring great talent to the Bonnies’ roster.
“They’re extremely accomplished,” McNamee said. “They’re individuals that we can’t get over here coming out of high school because they’re being gobbled up by the top-tier programs in the country. That enables us to bring somebody in who’s an immediate contributor. You have to have people you can develop, but you also have to have people who you can rely on immediately.”
Lets is from Novosbirsk, Russia, and Shchukin is from Krasnoyarsk, Russia. The swimmers share a special bond, as they knew each other in Russia before coming to St. Bonaventure to swim.
Lets said his friendship with Shchukin started at childhood, when they would swim against each other.
“We’re basically from the same state — only a couple hours away from each other,” Lets said. “Starting at age 10, we knew each other and raced each other.”
Lets said his decision to come to Bonaventure was fueled by his desire to avoid living in Germany.
“I left Russia after high school because my family moved to Germany, and I didn’t like it there,” Lets said. “So I moved to the States and started swimming for Bonaventure. He (Shchukin) didn’t enjoy living there and had problems with coaches, so I invited him over. He came and succeeded as well right after he came over.”
McNamee said the Bonnies will continue to recruit in Europe and hopefully find more talent like Lets and Shchukin.
“We’ve had a number of Eastern Europeans,” McNamee said. “There are some countries that we’ve had a lot of success with, Poland in particular. We don’t have ability to bring a lot of people over, but we would entertain the idea, without a question. They’ve had good work ethics and have been decent representatives of the program. We’ll cherish our time with them and see what comes in the future.”
Lets said the adjustment from Russia to the United States wasn’t hard and learning a new language came fast.
“It was definitely an interesting experience with some cultural shock,” Lets said. “Training-wise, it wasn’t very difficult. There are some differences in the way we train, but I adjusted quickly.”
The Bonnies have a home meet tomorrow against Canisius. The Golden Griffins are 1-1 in dual meets this season.
Last year, the Bonnies beat Canisius 145-90 and even managed to break seven of Canisius’ pool records. Lets broke the 200-yard freestyle and 500-yard freestyle records and was also a part of the record-breaking 400-yard freestyle team.
