Louisville Cardinals men’s swimming adds Israeli Olympian Denis Loktev
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BVM) — After having one of its best seasons in program history, the Louisville Cardinals men’s swimming and diving team may have gotten even better with a recent commitment. On Aug. 15, the Cardinals received a verbal commitment from Israeli Denis Loktev, just weeks after he represented his home country in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The commitment adds another strong swimmer to a Cardinals team that won its first Atlantic Coast Conference men’s swimming and diving championship in program history just a handful of months ago.
Loktev comes to the Louisville program with a lot of international success. The young swimmer first began his participation on the world stage as a member of the Israeli national team during the 2017 World Championships in Budapest, Hungary where he’d compete on both the 4×100 meter and 4×200 meter teams. The next year, the young star would compete on the world stage at the Youth Olympic Games where he would impress with a third place finish in the 200m freestyle, sixth in the 400m freestyle and led the Israeli team to eighth in the 4x100m, solidifying his future place as a cornerstone for his home country’s team.
In 2019, Loktev would qualify for three events at the World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, but would only compete in the opening heats for the 200m freestyle, 400m freestyle and the 4x200m freestyle. At the European Championships in 2020, Loktev would participate in the 100m freestyle, 200m freestyle, 4x100m freestyle and the 4x200m freestyle and would only move to the final round in the 4x200m freestyle where his team would finish fourth.
With his number of successes over the years, Loktev was selected to represent Israel in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics which took place this year due to a delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the Games, the 21-year-old would represent his country well as he finished 27th in the 200m freestyle as well as helping Israel advance to the finals for the 4x200m freestyle.
During the finals, Loktev led the Israel team with a 1:46.64 lead off, which broke the Israeli 200m freestyle national record. Though the team didn’t medal, they performed admirably against much larger countries with a 10th place finish in the finals.
Loktev is not the lone 2020 Olympic swimmer that will join the Cardinals this fall either. Brazilian Murilo Sartori, another 200m freestyle specialist, will also join the Louisville swim and dive team after he finished the Olympic Games with a 24th place finish in the 200m freestyle and helped Brazil to an 8th place finish in the 4x200m as the team’s anchor.
While it remains to be seen where Loktev will fit on the Louisville roster, adding an Olympic-caliber athlete can only help improve the team whether it’s in the water during competitions, during practices or in the locker room. With Olympians like Loktev adding both skill and experience to the Cardinals this year, expect the program to continue to build on its first ACC championship.
