Men’s 50 Back Semi-Finals:
Junya Koga of Japan smoked the competition in semi-finals of the men’s 50 backstroke, powering to the only sub-23 second swim of the evening. Koga stopped the clock at a 22.81 to not only claim the top seed going into tomorrow night’s final, but also moves up to fourth All-Time with a new Asian Record. The previous Asian Record was a 22.88, set by Koga himself in 2009 while swimming at a World Cup meet in Germany.
Belarus’ Pavel Yankovich picked up the second place seed with a time of 23.07, while France’s Jeremy Stravius snagged third with a time of 23.16.
Bobby Hurley of Australia finished fourth in semi-finals with a time of 23.20, followed by Spain’s Miguel Ortiz-Canavate and his time of 23.33.
Venezuela’s Albert Subirats (23.37), China’s Xu Jiayu (23.39), and Poland’s Tomasz Polewka (23.47) qualified as sixth through eighth respectively.
Lead off on Japan 4 x 50 Mixed medley at :22.74; can that count for records? I suspect not, but it is still impressive.