Svetlana Karpeeva


Svetlana Anatolyevna Karpeyeva is a Russian swimmer, who specialized in freestyle and individual medley events. She has been selected to the Russian swimming team in a medley double at the 2008 Summer Olympics, and also claimed three bronze medals in a major international competition, spanning two editions of the Summer Universiade.
Karpeeva competed in a medley double, and as a member of the Russian swimming team in the freestyle relay at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Leading up to the Games, she fired off a fantastic 2:14.13 to wrest the 200 m individual medley title and slide under the FINA A-cut at the Santa Clara Invitational meet in California.
On the first night of the Games, Karpeeva swam her first two events with only 30 minutes in between. First, she fought off a sprint freestyle challenge from Mexico's Susana Escobar in heat two of the 400 m individual medley, before fading to sixth place and thirty-first overall in 4:50.22. Half an hour later, Karpeeva and her Russian teammates Daria Belyakina, Yelena Sokolova, and Anastasia Aksenova claimed a distant sixth spot and twelfth overall in the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay with a time of 3:42.52. Diving into the pool at the final exchange, she produced an anchor split of 55.52 seconds.
Three days later, Karpeeva missed the top eight final of the 200 m individual medley with a thirteenth-place time in 2:13.26. One night earlier, she scored a solid 2:12.94 on the rear of the dominant breaststroke leg to grab the last semifinal seed, following her fourth-place finish in heat four.
Karpeeva is also a resident athlete of King Aquatic Club in Federal Way, Washington, where she trained with numerous world-class swimmers including Margaret Hoelzer and Megan Jendrick of the United States, and Heather Brand, a butterfly specialist from Zimbabwe.