2016 SHORT COURSE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
- December 6th – December 11th, 2016
- Windsor, Ontario, Canada
- WFCU Centre
- SCM (25m)
- Prelims: 9:30 AM EST/Finals: 6:30 PM EST
- Start Lists/Results
- Live Stream ($)
The defending short course world champion, Mitch Larkin of Australia, will be battling more than just his competitors come tonight’s 100m backstroke final in Windsor. The 23-year-old double world champion and Olympic silver medalist revealed this week that he is recovering from a knee injury stemming from an accident a couple of weeks ago. Larkin slipped and fell on wet gravel, leaving his knee grazed and bruised. The incident reportedly prevented Larkin from practicing his starts until this past Monday, the day before the 2016 FINA World Championships kicked off.
“It has not been ideal but I didn’t want to make a big thing of it just preferring to work with it,”Larkin said. “It has been uncomfortable at times. But it’s improving and I’m dealing with it.”
Larkin has been performing well in the sprint backstroke event, clocking the 2nd-fastest time of the heats (50.22) followed by clinching the 3rd seed from semi’s (50.10). He’s already within half a second of the 49.57 he threw down to claim the world title in 2014, but Larkin will need to fight off contenders such as Russia’s Grigory Tarasevich, China’s Xu Jiayu and America’s Jacob Pebley to defend his short course gold.