Defending world and Olympic champion Simone Manuel pulled off a rare feat Friday at the World Swimming Championships, winning another 100-meter freestyle title from all the way out in Lane 1, setting a new American record time of 52.04 seconds.
The U.S. team took three medals in the evening session, with Ryan Murphy taking silver in the 200m backstroke and the men taking bronze in a back-and-forth 4x200m freestyle relay. American swimmers also took two world records, with Caeleb Dressel and Regan Smith smashing the long-standing marks in their semifinals.
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Manuel hadn’t looked as strong this week as Cate Campbell, who raced past Manuel to lead Australia to victory in the 4x100-meter mixed medley relay. Campbell started in the middle of the pool alongside world record-holder Sarah Sjoestroem of Sweden, while a slow semifinal put Manuel in the unfamiliar position of the outside lanes.
But Manuel started well and led at the turn, then touched the wall 0.39 seconds ahead of Campbell, who looked up in disbelief. Sjoestroem took her second freestyle bronze of the championships to go with her silver in the 100-meter butterfly. American Mallory Comerford finished seventh.
“I did feel a lot of pressure coming into the meet,” Manuel said. “I think a lot of it was on myself, wanting to repeat.”
Murphy followed up with a silver medal in the 200-meter backstroke behind Evgeny Rylov, getting within a few inches of the Russian swimmer after the final turn but fading just enough at the end to lose by half a body length. Rylov finished in 1:53.40 to Murphy’s 1:54.12, the two fastest times in the world this year.
“I judge my success off the Olympics,” Murphy said when asked if he was disappointed at the lack of an individual world championship.
Australia won a wild men’s 4x200-meter freestyle relay full of lead changes, with Russia taking second and the U.S. rallying twice to take bronze.
The U.S. was in fifth after Andrew Seliskar‘s opening leg. Blake Pieroni, swimming the second leg, briefly gave the U.S. team the lead and finished his swim with the team in second. The U.S. faded again to fifth in Zach Apple‘s third leg, but Townley Haas, a veteran of several medal-winning relays in 2016 and 2017, forged ahead to challenge for the lead and finally finish with bronze ahead of Italy and defending champion Great Britain.
[protected-iframe id="79e250a832d1433331eb6c3eef5eff48-39675906-3804296" info="Yuliya Efimova easily won the 200-meter breaststroke final in the absence of American Lilly King, who was disqualified in the preliminary heats. No American swimmers made the final.
Russia took a third win of the session and the third world record of the session, after Dressel and Smith, when Anton Chupkov rallied past Australia’s Matthew Wilson to win the 200-meter breaststroke in 2:06.12.
Chupkov was in last place at the halfway mark, 1.58 seconds behind Wilson, who had tied the world record of 2:06.67 in the semifinals. Chupkov was still only fifth at the final turn but stormed past Wilson, who finished just a hair off his previous record with a time of 2:06.68.
American Andrew Wilson was second at the halfway mark and third at the final turn but faded to sixth.
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