The Art of Swimming

THE SKATER’S ARMS move up and down to an ‘80s punk ballad that grates the air around her. Gliding down the ice, she swings her shoulders back and forth to the beat.

With eyes and expression as dark as her braids and the lace ruffles around her collar, the skater glares, throws her head back and continues on a purposefully awkward and yet confident journey through purple stagelights in the shadowy arena.

It is Kamila Valieva’s recreation of Jenna Ortega’s haunting “Wednesday” dance, from the streaming TV series spinoff of the Addams Family, in an exhibition at the conclusion of the Russian figure skating championships last December.   

The performance lives in the video library of Andrei Minakov’s phone.

“How can you not like it?” he says.

To Minakov, a Stanford science, technology & society major and world-class swimmer, figure skating – especially in the example of Valieva – is the essence of sport. If you could grind athletics to their base, you would end up with something like what is seen on Minakov’s screen: storytelling through movement and competition.

“I have a strong feeling that sports is another way to show art,” Minakov said. "Sports like figure skating or artistic swimming do that in the best way. Nathan Chen … once he steps on the ice … Just incredible.”

Smooth … that’s the closest English word that Minakov, a native of Saint Petersburg, Russia, can think of that relates to this feeling, this sense. But does the same apply to Minakov?

“I don’t think it’s possible to channel something like that into swimming,” Minakov said. “The only thing that matters in swimming is speed and technique. If you want something smooth, you have artistic swimming.”

Those closest to him do not agree.

“When I watch him swim, it’s like art,” said Andrei’s sister, Uliana Stoliarova, a San Francisco artist. “The way he moves, the way his face looks – the expression of motivation. He doesn’t see it. He thinks his sport has nothing to do with art. But I see it.”

Art has different interpretations. When Dan Schemmel, Stanford’s Goldman Family Director of Men’s Swimming, considers what makes Minakov so special as a swimmer – Minakov is the defending NCAA 100-yard butterfly champion and holds three individual school records – he first describes technique.

“I don’t know if he does anything unique,” Schemmel said. “But when you watch his freestyle and butterfly from a technical standpoint, he does everything right. It’s that beautiful technique along with someone who’s as strong as an ox.

“When he moves at full speed and he’s applying his full strength … that’s when the magic happens.”

At the 2019 World Championships, the then-17-year-old became the first Russian in history to swim the 100-meter fly under 51 seconds. In the next day’s final, he swam even faster, setting a national record of 50.83 while earning a silver medal.

A month later, he won three gold medals at the World Junior Championships – in the 100 fly, 100 freestyle and the 400 medley relay in which he helped break the world junior record.

At the 2020 Russian Championships, Minakov, still only 18, broke a world junior record in the 100 free that Australia’s Kyle Chalmers set while winning the gold at the Beijing Olympics. He broke another in the 50 fly.

In 2021, two months before he attended his first class on the Stanford campus, Minakov placed fourth in the 100 fly at the Tokyo Olympics and fourth in the 400 medley relay.  

“For the Olympics, World Championships, or European Championships, every time you go to a meet, every year, you try to think of a little thing you can improve on to get a better result,” Minakov said. “For one year, it was my sleep schedule. For the next one, it was nutrition. Then, what if I do more stretching here? What about my start? What if I move my head here?

“I have a set of rules of things that I have to do to be at the highest level: hydration, nutrition, rest, stretching. Still, nothing is perfect. I’m still looking for some things that I need to improve on, every day, every practice.”

Schemmel said Minakov lives a “championship lifestyle. He takes care of his body better than anyone I’ve ever worked with … He’s very in tune. Phenomenal body awareness.”

It shows in the water. Efficiency and power.

“I see art in everything he does,” wrote Andrei’s mother, Irina Stoliarova, in an e-mail. “I’m surprised he thinks swimming is any less artistic than figure skating. Swimming, especially butterfly, is very artistic and beautiful. The body movements are akin to rhythmic dancing, which definitely is a form of art.”

The appreciation Minakov has for figure skating preceded his own ability to skate. Minakov only learned in December, on an outdoor rink on Moscow’s Red Square, with the help of TV host and former Azerbaijani Olympic figure skater Emma Hagieva.

Whenever he’s in Russia, Minakov is drawn to the ice. He is a huge fan of SKA Saint Petersburg of Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League and tries to attend figure skating competitions. At an SKA game a few months ago, he took a photo with Aliona Kostornaia, the 2020 European figure skating champion, each in SKA sweaters.

“Figure skating is very popular in Russia, you would find skating rinks everywhere and he has a lot of skater friends who are top level sportspeople, just like him,” Irina wrote. “They have a lot in common, especially the hard work behind success, and discipline. Many of his friends take swimming classes from him and he tried figure skating with them. They have this genuine admiration of each other.”

Andrei said his appreciation for the sport is even greater than for the skaters themselves.

“All of the skaters are different and all have a unique style,” Minakov said. “I’m more of a fan of the culture in general and the art that they’re making on the ice.”

MINAKOV WAS BORN in Finland – arriving earlier than expected during a vacation – and was raised in Saint Petersburg, a city of more than 5 million at the head of the Gulf of Finland and the eastern edge of the Baltic Sea.

The city, founded by Peter the Great in 1703 on the site of a captured Swedish fortress, is considered Russia’s cultural capital and served as the imperial capital during the days of the czars. Andrei grew up in a four-room fourth-floor apartment, across the street from a park, in a city with a rich and vibrant arts tradition.

The State Russian Museum in the Mikhailovsky Palace includes Ilya Repin’s “Barge Haulers on the Volga,” an oil canvas completed in 1873 that is among the world’s most famous paintings on social injustice.

The State Hermitage Museum, founded by Catherine the Great and facing mammoth Palace Square, is one of the oldest and largest museums in the world and holds 3 million works of art.

“This is the city where Dostoevsky, Pushkin and Gogol created their masterpieces,” Irina wrote. “I would guess that the majority of people from Saint Petersburg do appreciate arts and Andrei, being a curious young man, is especially interested in arts and has great natural taste for things beautiful and artistic.”

It was the arts, in a way, that drew Andrei to the Bay Area and to Stanford. Uliana moved to San Francisco to study filmmaking at Academy of Art and Andrei and Irina began visiting annually in 2012 when he was 10.

These were the days when he still was discovering himself as a swimmer. He first was a competitive skier, but began swimming at age 6, after his mother got the idea from a friend, who placed her daughter in a swim program.

Andrei did not have immediate success.

“I would get something like 15th place in a single event,” he recalled. “I was very slow in the beginning.”

However, his introduction to swimming was crucial to his future approach and mindset, and success.

“There’s only one place, first place,” Andrei was told by his first coach. “It’s either first place or nothing else. Second or third doesn’t matter. As long as it’s not first, it’s just like any other place.”

Minakov said, “I’ve followed that my whole career and I’ll follow that until the end of my career -- not only in swimming, but in general. You’re either first, you’re either the best, or you’re just in the category like any other.”

Even with some early struggles, Minakov swam with a “spirit of fighting and winning,” Irina wrote. “What makes him a successful swimmer is discipline and hard work toward his clear goals.”

Andrei’s ankles and legs at first were stiff from skiing and inflexible in the water. He needed time to adjust in the pool before his results improved. At age 10, Andrei began to train twice a day, six days a week, and has done so ever since.

Being in the U.S. was a great opportunity to perfect the English skills that he learned in Russia. With Uliana in San Francisco, Andrei became comfortable with the Bay Area, racing for Concord’s Terrapins swim club during the summer, and making Stanford a goal.  

A Stanford coaching change slowed the recruiting process. But outgoing coach Ted Knapp alerted Schemmel to Minakov’s initial interest, and, once contacted, Minakov was all in. He enrolled as COVID hit and spent his freshman year taking classes remotely while training for Tokyo.

BELIEVING HE HAD a chance at two medals, Minakov left with none. Taking fourth in two events at the Olympics was especially difficult for someone who normally takes losses hard.

“I wanted to quit swimming,” he said. “It was an emotional reaction, of course. For sure, I was coming back. That was never a question. I spent one month away and felt like that was enough – to refocus and refresh the mind.

“A huge thanks to the guys on the Stanford team. I came here straight from the Olympics and they helped me to settle in and see different aspects of swimming, see swimming from different angles. That was the biggest factor toward refocusing my swimming. I’m so grateful to all of them.”

When he arrived at Stanford for his first collegiate swimming season, in the fall of 2021, he was taken aback that medals were not awarded at most meets. It wasn’t that he needed to add to his collection, it was that “I never swam in a meet where I didn’t get a medal,” Minakov said. “It was uncomfortable for me. Why are we doing this? I was swimming fast for nothing.”

He soon grew accustomed to college swimming’s uniqueness, having never been in a true team setting. Even on national and club teams, coaching mostly was geared toward individuals or small event groups. There were differences in social settings too. In Russia, close friendships develop more quickly. In the U.S., people seem more guarded and cautious.

In the midst of these adjustments, the team became his family. Card swimmers train together, study together, eat together. And, on weekends without competitions, Andrei reconnects with his home family. He pulls his bike onto Caltrain and heads to The City to visit Uliana, where they walk around town, or hike, find restaurants, watch TV, and just laugh.

A regular occurrence at Avery Aquatic Center is the Minakov Challenge. After practice, Minakov may challenge teammates to races, or they will challenge him. Twenty-five yards, any stroke. Any time, anywhere. That never happened on the team before Minakov arrived.

He loves to race. He yearns for it.  

“If the guy next to me is a world champion, the mentality that swimming has taught me is, I don’t care,” Minakov said. “If there are 10 Olympic champions on the blocks next to me, I don’t care. I’m going to race them all, and I’m going to win.”

The season soon turns toward the NCAA Championships March 22-25 in Minneapolis where, “He’ll be swimming as many events as humanly possible,” Schemmel said.

Schemmel hasn’t decided if that means two individual events and five relays, or three individuals and four relays. Relays offer double the points than an individual event, which makes them so enticing. Last year, Minakov earned seven All-America honors while helping the Cardinal to seventh as a team. Stanford sits at No. 10 in the most recent coaches’ poll.

Still only a redshirt sophomore, Minakov has two more years of eligibility remaining if he chooses to use them.

“We’re taking it year by year,” Schemmel said.. “There’s no pressure on our part. He’s been through a lot and we’ll support him with whatever he decides to do. I think a lot depends on the 2024 Olympics.”

THE OLYMPICS … For Minakov, a great source of frustration has been Russia’s status in international sports.

Since 2017, Russia has been under some kind of suspension or ban, mostly from the World Anti-Doping Agency for longtime state-sponsored doping schemes. A ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport allowed Russian athletes not linked to doping to participate in global competitions as neutral competitors, which enabled Minakov to compete at the 2019 World Championships and the Tokyo Olympics, the latter under the Russian Olympic Committee banner.

The ban was to be lifted at the end of 2022, but on February 28 of that year, the International Olympic Committee's executive board recommended sports federations ban Russia following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

FINA, swimming’s world governing body, which had allowed Russians to compete internationally as “neutral athletes,” banned them completely a month later, preventing Minakov from competing at the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, or the European Championships in Rome.

Recently, on February 20, the governments of 34 countries called on the IOC to exclude Russia from the 2024 Olympics in Paris. The IOC had said it would explore a pathway for Russians to compete under a neutral flag, but this new development complicates the pursuit of that goal.

For Minakov, his chances to compete at July’s World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, and the 2024 Worlds in February in Doha, Qatar, as well as the Paris Games, are in jeopardy. It’s not just accolades at stake, but rather his ability to become the best swimmer he can be. He is not allowed into competitions that would enable him to reach his potential.

How can Minakov, and other Russian swimmers, fulfill their goals if little changes?

“We have to be ready all the time,” Minakov said. “It’s not our jurisdiction to decide whether to swim or not, because obviously we want to swim. The best thing we can do is stay calm and stick to the process. Work hard. And if it’s not going to happen, that doesn’t depend on us.

“Being Russian, we get used to it. We might not even know if we’re going to swim one day before the event starts. But, if we get invited, we’re going to swim fast.”

Minakov still is only 20. He turns 21 on March 17. He is wise enough to understand he has years of elite swimming ahead. He can do little but wait for peace, and for times to change.

“Deprivation of the opportunity to compete is demotivating and immensely frustrating,” Irina wrote. “Any competition, and especially the Olympics, are a celebration of hard work. Without this celebration and recognition, all the hard work seems to be in vain.”

So, what does he aim for? What drives Minakov beyond his collegiate career and into an uncertain future?

“Once upon a time, I spoke with Milorad Cavic, the silver medalist at the Beijing Olympics in the 100 fly,” Minakov said. “He told me he sees me as the first man under 49 seconds. I train to make those words come true.”

Cavic, a former Cal swimmer representing Serbia, was outtouched by Michael Phelps in a dramatic 2008 Olympic final. A year later, Cavic held the world record of 50.01 for a day until Phelps took it under 50 seconds. Today’s standard, set in 2021, is 49.45 by Caeleb Dressel of the U.S., who edged Minakov for World gold in 2019.

“Even if I have one swim like that, but I have to train 10 years for it, I still would do it,” Minakov said. “Like Usain Bolt said, ‘I trained four years to run nine seconds.’ Right?”

It would be a masterpiece.