Russia took triple gold across the 200m events at the FINA World Championships on Friday, thanks to Anton Chupkov and Yuliya Efimova in a breaststroke double and Evgeny Rylov in the backstroke. They upstaged Simone Manuel, who claimed the top podium for the USA in the women’s 100m freestyle. She had shared Olympic gold at the Rio Games last summer, but took the medal outright this time, beating top-ranked Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden.
Sjostrom had gone under the 52-second barrier in the 4x100m relay and was again under world-record pace at the turn. But Manuel, a 20-year-old Texan, clawed her way level with 25m left and with her final five strokes clocked an American-record time of 52.27 seconds.
Sjostrom finished 0.04 seconds behind. Denmark’s Pernille Blume took bronze.
Efimova then matched Alexsandr Popov’s five individual world titles for Russia with a gold in the women’s 200m breaststroke.
The results: Men: 200m backstroke: 1. Evgeny Rylov (Rus) 1:53.61s, 2. Ryan Murphy (USA) 1:54.21, 3. Jacob Pebley (USA) 1:55.06; 200m breaststroke: 1. Anton Chupkov (Rus) 2:06.96, 2. Yasuhiro Koseki (Jpn) 2:07.29, 3. Ippei Watanabe (Jpn) 2:07.47; 4x200m freestyle: 1. Great Britain 7:01.70, 2. Russia 7:02.68, 3. USA 7:03.18.
Women: 100m freestyle: 1. Simone Manuel (USA) 52.27s, 2. Sarah Sjostrom (Swe) 52.31, 3. Pernielle Blume (Den) 52.69; 200m breaststroke: 1. Yuliya Efimova (Rus) 2:19.64, 2. Bethany Galat (USA) 2:21.77, 3. Shi Jinglin (Chn) 2:21.93.