2015 World Championships Snaps Two Significant U.S. Winning Streaks

Unfortunately for the American men’s swimming team, day six of the 2015 FINA World Championships brought an end to two of their impressive winning streaks.

As a nod to the rich history of men’s elite backstroke swimming in the United States, you would have to travel all the way back to 1994 to find a non-American male winner of the 200m backstroke event at a world championships. Lenny Krayzelburg kicked off the trend in 1998, winning the 200m backstroke title in Perth and then Aaron Peirsol continued the streak through 2001, 2003 and 2005 before Ryan Lochte stepped in to take the gold in 2007.  Peirsol reclaimed the gold in the event once more in 2009 before Lochte reaped 2011’s and 2013’s 200m back titles.

However, backstroking ace Mitch Larkin snapped the stretch of American victories, earning the first 200m backstroke world title ever for his country of Australia.  Larkin, also the 2015 World Championships 100m backstroke gold medalist, topped the field today to win in a time of 1:53.58, a new Australian record.  The highest American finisher was Ryan Murphy who clocked a personal best time of 1:55.00 for the race.  Also swimming for the U.S. was  Tyler Clary.  However, the 2012 200m backstroke gold medalist was a non-factor, having finished 7th in an event in which he has won bronze in both 2011 and 2013 editions of the meet.

The streak of Americans not winning a single medal goes back even further – that hasn’t happened since 1991 when Martin Lopez-Subero won gold for Spain. He remains the only Spanish male ever to win a long course World Championships.

Throw in 5-consecutive Olympic gold medals (1992 and Zubero again, in front of a home crowd in Spain, was the last non-American to win the event), and the streak was even more impressive.

All-Time World Championship Winners in 200 back

• 1973 – Roland Matthes (GDR)
• 1975 – Zoltan Verraszto (HUN)
• 1978 – Jesse Vassallo (USA)
• 1982 – Rick Carey (USA)
• 1986 – Igor Polyansky (URS)
• 1991 – Martin Zubero (ESP)
• 1994 – Vladimir Selkov (RUS)
• 1998 – Lenny Krayzelburg (USA)
• 2001 – Aaron Peirsol (USA)
• 2003 – Aaron Peirsol (USA)
• 2005 – Aaron Peirsol (USA)
• 2007 – Ryan Lochte (USA)
• 2009 – Aaron Peirsol (USA)
• 2011 – Ryan Lochte (USA)
• 2013 – Ryan Lochte (USA)
• 2015 – Mitch Larkin (AUS)

In addition to seeing this string of 200m backstroke world titles abruptly cut, the Americans were also denied gold in the men’s 800m freestyle relay, an event they have won since 2005.  The U.S. foursome of Lochte, Conor Dwyer, Reed Malone and Michael Weiss were out in front and tried to hold on through the anchor leg, before the squad was taken over by a monstrous sub-1:45 split by Great Britain’s surging freestyler James Guy. Great Britain would indeed go on to win the event in a time of 7:04.33, their first title ever in this relay at a world championships.

Most would not consider it a coincidence that the same world championships at which this streak is snapped is also the same edition at which American swimmer Michael Phelps is absent due to a drunk driving suspension. Phelps was present on each of the last five American winning 800 free relays, and his past performances certainly point to his having the ability to create a different result than the one the United States saw today.