Russian Evgeny Rylov pulled off a come from behind win in the men’s 200 back with a 1:47.02, touching out American Ryan Murphy and narrowly missing the championship record.
Rylov was in third through much of the race, trailing China’s Xu Jiayu and Australia’s Mitchell Larkin in the first 100. Xu and Larkin have had plenty of battles in the short course backstroke events this season through the FINA World Cup and looked like they were putting together another 1-2 finish early in the race.
Immediately after the race Larkin said: “It has been a really good week. It has been a big year and to finish off on the podium in the green and gold is pretty awesome.
“There are some great backstrokers here. The depth is amazing,” he added.
Murphy made a move to take over the lead by the 150 mark, but he couldn’t hold off the charging Russian. Rylov had the fastest final 50 split with a 27.08, blowing by the rest of the field to grab gold. Notably, Xu ended up sixth after leading the race through the 100, while Larkin finished in a tie for third with Poland’s Radoslaw Kawecki (1:48.25), who was the two-time defending short world champ in this event.
