Serhiy Mykolaiovych Advena ( uk, Сергій Миколайович Адвена; born August 4, 1984) is a Ukrainian former swimmer who specializes in the freestyle and butterfly swimming styles. He is a two-time Olympian (2004 and 2008), and a multiple-time Ukrainian record holder in both 100 and 200 m butterfly. He also helped out the Ukrainian team to upset their American rivals and claim the medley relay title (3:38.49) at the 2005 Summer Universiade in Izmir, Turkey.
Advena made his Olympic debut in Athens 2004, competing in two swimming events. He also teamed up with Maksym Kokosha, Dmytro Vereitinov, and Olympic stalwart Serhiy Fesenko in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay. Swimming the anchor leg, Advena recorded a fastest split of 1:50.90, and the Ukrainian team went to finish the preliminary heats in twelfth overall, with a final time of 7:24.13. In the 200 m butterfly, Advena failed to qualify for the final, as he finished twelfth overall in his semifinal run in 1:58.11. His time was just two hundredths of a second (0.02s) ahead of Japan's
Takeshi Matsuda
is a retired Japanese Olympic, Asian and National Record holding swimmer. He swam for Japan at the 2004, 2008 Olympics, 2012 Olympics, and 2016 Olympics, winning four medals. At the 2008 Olympics, he won a bronze medal in the men's 200 m bu ...
, who beat him for the gold medal at the
2003 Summer Universiade
The 2003 Summer Universiade, also known as the XXII Summer Universiade, took place in Daegu, South Korea.
Emblem
* The alphabet letter "U" and five stars, which is FISU's emblem, make up the basis of the emblem for the Daegu Universiade.
* It sym ...
in
Daegu, South Korea
Daegu (, , literally 'large hill', 대구광역시), formerly spelled Taegu and officially known as the Daegu Metropolitan City, is a city in South Korea.
It is the third-largest urban agglomeration in South Korea after Seoul and Busan; it is ...
.
Four years after competing in his first Olympics, Advena qualified for his second Ukrainian team, as a 24-year-old, at the 2008 Summer Olympics in
Beijing
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Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
Eindhoven, Netherlands
Eindhoven () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of North Brabant of which it is its largest. With a population of 238,326 on 1 January 2022,200 m freestyle, including South Africa's
Darian Townsend
Darian Roy Townsend (born 28 August 1984) is a competition swimmer and Olympic gold medalist who competed for South Africa. He became a U.S. citizen during the summer of 2014, and has subsequently represented the United States in international ...
and Israel's Nimrod Shapira Bar-Or. He cruised to third place by a single tenth margin from Townsend in a Ukrainian record time of 1:48.18, but missed the semifinals by a 0.37-second deficit, as he placed twenty-third overall in the preliminaries. In the 200 m butterfly, Advena posted a time of 1:56.24 to obtain a fourteenth seed on the morning prelims. Then, he repeated his feat from Athens with a fifteenth-place time of 1:56.64 in the semifinals.