Penza, 21 December 2015. PenzaNews. Maria Astashkina, International master of sports from Penza, has won the “Water Aphrodite 2015” people’s vote organized by the Russian Swimming Federation.

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The contest attracted nearly 16,000 people who voted for one of the 10 women athletes presented for the event. As a result, Maria Astashkina received about 33% of the overall VK.com and Facebook votes.

Another Penza athlete, Sergei Fesikov, took part in the “Water Apollo” contest, but he was surpassed by Daniil Pakhomov with 31% of the vote.

The Russian Swimming Federation award ceremony took place in St. Petersburg.

The best swimmers received their awards from Sergei Naryshkin, Russian Duma chairman, head of the Russian Swimming Federation Supreme Monitoring Council; and Vladimir Salnikov, president of the Russian Swimming Federation.

The winners of this year’s “Discovery of the Year” award are Daniil Pakhomov from St. Petersburg and Polina Yegorova from Bashkortostan, as well as Yaroslav Potapov from Volgograd in marathon swimming. Their coaches – Vladimir Tarasov, Tatyana Mankevich, and Khanif Shafikov – also received awards for achievements of their students.

Evgeny Rylov (swimming) and Anton Yevsikov (open water) were named “Athletes of the Year,” along with Yulia Yefimova, and Anastasiya Krapivina in open water.

Their coaches, Lidia Vlasevskaya, Andrei Shishin and Alexander Zakharov, also received prizes, as well as Yulia Yefimova’s coach Dave Salo who was unable to be present at the ceremony personally, says the press service of the Russian Swimming Federation.

As PenzaNews agency reported earlier Maria Astashkina received the “Discovery of the Year” titled in the previous year’s ceremony. Her mentor, supreme class coach Yuri Tyukanin, also received a reward for his student’s achievement.