World Cup Tokyo: Xu Jiayu Lowers Own Chinese NR in 200 Back

2018 FINA WORLD CUP TOKYO

• Friday, November 9th – Sunday, November 11th
• Tatsumi International Swimming Center
• SCM
• Heats at 9:30am local/Finals at 6pm local
• SwimSwam Meet Preview
• Entry List
• Day 1 Prelims
• Results

While competing on day 1 of the FINA World Cup stop in Tokyo Japan, dominant Chinese backstroker Xu Jiayu lowered his own national record in the men’s 200m back en route to gold.

Entering tonight’s finals session, Xu’s personal best and previous NR rested at the 1:49.08 to represent the first time the 23-year-old delved under the 1:50 threshold. This evening, however, Xu took things to an entirely different level, dipping into the 1:48 territory with a winning effort of 1:48.32.

That was enough to hold of former world champion in the event, Mitch Larkin of Australia, who settled for silver in 1:48.51. Both men represent the only swimmers of the field to dip under 1:50 on the night.

On the list of top performances of all-time, Xu’s 1:48.32 checks-in at #22, while on the all-time performers, Xu is now 8th fastest in history.

Splits from his previous national record of 1:49.08 include 52.34/56.74, while tonight’s result was comprised of 52.22/56.10, showing a vast improvement on Xu’s maintaining his speed on the back-end.

Xu wears the crown in the world rankings this season over Mitch Larkin, Japan’s Ryosuke Irie and any other would-be contender at this point.