Though swimmers such as Radoslaw Kawecki took the second heat of the 200 backstroke out fast, Ryan Murphy stuck to his game plan and put together a swim that puts him in the championship final at the FINA world championships.
“I started looking around off the last wall, and I saw that Kawecki was out in lane one, and Xu (Jiayu) was right there in three and Mitch (Larkin) was in four. I didn’t want to be fourth in my heat, so I tried to step it up the last 50 and I think it worked out.”
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Murphy is the epitome of calmness before any major race, but the American phenom said he couldn’t help but feel a bit of nerves as the partisan Russian crowd cheered for Grigory Tarasevich when he walked out for the swim.
“My heart got a little bit up when I heard them cheering for (Tarasevich),” he said. “That’s really cool to hear. It makes everyone step up their game to know that they have a country like that behind them, and for us thinking that we have one behind us back home.”
Though this meet marks Murphy’s first long course world championships, it is not his first time at a major world meet. He participated in the short course world championships in 2012, winning bronze in the 200 backstroke behind Kawecki and Ryan Lochte. He echoed the sentiments of many athletes who have said that the long course championships carries much more weight and importance.
“I place a higher stake in this meet (long course worlds),” he said. “Everyone’s a little bit more intense. It’s definitely more of a pressure-packed meet.”