Andrey Korneyev

Andrey Korneyev first competed internationally at the 1991 European Championships and in the mid-1990s was considered as the top European breaststroke swimmer. The high point of Korneyev’s career was probably at the 1996 Olympics, where in the 200 breaststroke final Korneyev started strongly, going out ahead of world record pace at the halfway mark, but later tired and was touched out by Hungarians Norbert Rózsa and Károly Güttler to receive a bronze medal. Four days after the final it was announced that Korneyev had tested positive for the stimulant bromantan and would be stripped of his bronze medal, but he appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport on the basis that the drug was not a stimulant but merely an aid to boost the body’’s immune system, and his bronze medal was restored.

Besides his Olympic bronze, Korneyev won the 200 m breaststroke silver at the 1997 World Short Course Championships, was European 200 m breaststroke champion in 1995 and 4×100 m medley relay champion in 1995 and 1997, while taking 200 m breaststroke silver at the 1997 and bronze at the 1993 European Championships. He was also the Russian 100 m and 200 m breaststroke champion in 1993 and 1995 and set one 200 m breaststroke short course World record, when he clocked 2:07.79 at the World Cup event in Paris in 1998. Korneyev retired from sports after he was not selected to the 2000 Russian Olympic team and later worked as a swimming coach in Moscow, but died rather young, in May 2014, after a long battle with stomach cancer.

Personal Bests: 100 m breaststroke – 1:01.88 (1995); 200 m breaststroke – 2:12.62 (1995).