Matt Grevers Wanted To Be 33 One-Hundredths Better

Captured and edited by Mitch Bowmile

Reported by Loretta Race

MEN’S 200 BACK

USA pulled out another win, with a huge push by big man Matt Grevers in the last 25m of the race. Serbian/Proleter Club member Arkady Vyatchanin looked impressively smooth, yet fierce in the first 150m, splitting 25.65, 27.49 and 28.27.  But Grevers split a final 50 at 26.44 to Vyatchanin’s 29.46 to hammer out the win in dominating closing fashion.

Grevers’ final 50 was so quick, it even out-split his opening leg by .10 of a second (26.54). His final time was 1:48.97, just .o7 of a second off of Lochte’s American Record.

Vyatchanin, the former world record holder in this event until Aussie Mitch Larkin tore it up at his nation’s Short Course Nationals recently, clocked a time of 1:50.87 for 2nd place.

American Ryan Lochte doubled up on his 400 IM victory with a 3rd place spot in this race, touching in 1:52.58 to add another point to the U.S. total.

MEN’S 400 MEDLEY RELAY

In the final event of the day, the men’s relay of Matt Grevers, Kevin Cordes, Tom Shields, and Nathan Adrian broke the American record, winning the event in 3:20.91. That broke the previous American record from 2010 of 3:20.99. Grever’s lead off split also broke the US Open record in the men’s 100 backstroke. He touched at 49.25, lowering his own record from 2011 of 49.85.

Shields, fresh off his rattling of the world record, blasted a 48.07 on the fly leg, and Adrian outsplit Vlad Morozov 45.56 to 45.66 to cap off the win.

The European relay was made up of Arkady Vyatchanin, Daniel Gyurta, Laszlo Cseh and Morozov, and went 3:21.87. Gyurta put the team into the lead with a 56.38 breaststroke split, but he was the only European to outsplit his American counterpart and Shileds erased the lead almost instantly.