World Championships, Day Six Finals: Hubert Kos Gets His Time to Shine With Gold in 200 Backstroke

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World Championships, Day Six Finals: Hubert Kos Gets His Time to Shine With Gold in 200 Backstroke

Throughout the first five days of the World Championships, Hubert Kos watched his collegiate teammate, Leon Marchand, make multiple trips to the podium. On Friday night at the Marine Messe Hall, the Hungarian youngster decided it was his turn to be the Arizona State guy in the spotlight.

Packaging a well-designed performance, Kos lurked behind American Ryan Murphy through the early portion of the 200-meter backstroke. But as the second half of the race started to take shape, Kos pulled even, and then away from Murphy to register the finest moment of his developing career. Kos touched the wall in 1:54.14, more than a half-second clear of Murphy, who picked up the silver medal in 1:54.83. The bronze medal went to Switzerland’s Roman Mityukov in 1:55.34. Kos broke the six-year-old Hungarian record by 1.44 seconds.

While Marchand captured a trio of gold medals in Fukuoka, it’s also clear that Kos has elevated his status under the watch of coach Bob Bowman at Arizona State. Kos is a multi-event standout who claimed the gold medal in the 200 individual medley at the 2022 European Championships. But for this summer’s edition of the World Champs, Kos saw the 200 backstroke as an opportunity.

When Kos arrived in Tempe and began working with Bowman, he was also immediately surrounded by immense talent on Arizona State’s collegiate roster and those working in the ASU pro group. Kos’ contributions during the winter helped the Sun Devils capture their first Pac-12 Conference championship and finish second at the NCAA Championships. A few months later and the 20-year-old is flourishing on the global stage.

As is the case with Marchand, Kos will head into the Olympic year and preparation for Paris 2024 riding a wave of momentum. And with another year of work in what might be the deepest training group in the world, Kos has reason to be excited about what awaits.

“I went out to Arizona State to focus on my IM because the IM group there is kind of good,” Kos said. “But when I got there, we were getting ready for the (200 IM), and it was really good working with Leon, working with Chase (Kalisz) on that and I felt like I was getting really good on that. But leading up to the TYR Pro Series at Westmont, Bob said, let’s try the (200 back). Let’s try to qualify for that. And I swam a really good time in that. That’s the time that was the best time in the world, (1:55.9). That was a really good swim, I thought. There was a couple of mistakes in there that I knew I could fix, but I think that was the moment that I knew that I was going to swim it at Worlds and really focus on it.”

At the midpoint, Murphy seemed to be in position to repeat as world champion. But the veteran wasn’t pleased with how he handled the back half of the race. If nothing else, Murphy will learn from the performance and adjust. Via his runnerup finish, Murphy now owns 12 medals in the 200 backstroke from international competition.

“I went in there and I wouldn’t say I executed a perfect race by any means,” Murphy said. “That’s something that I talked to the coaches about, and we’ll really try to hone in the race strategy for next year. I always want to push that third 50 a little bit harder. That’s always the hardest part of the race, so I think I was a little bit soft on the third 50. When you let up there, it becomes harder to push that last 50 as well, because if you’re slowing down, it’s hard to speed up again.”

The final was without double-Olympic backstroke champion Evgeny Rylov, due to the ban on Russia and Belarus from the World Champs for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine. Whether Rylov will be eligible for next summer’s Olympic Games in Paris remains uncertain. Even if the International Olympic Committee admits Russian athletes on an individual and unattached basis, Rylov may not be cleared to compete. In March 2022, the athlete voluntarily appeared at a rally supporting Putin and his declaration of war against the Ukraine, a decision which led to sponsorship termination and condemnation from World Aquatics.

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Frank A Wilson

9 months ago

Congratulations to Hubert Kos! As Kos says what Bob Bowman is doing at ASU is pure swimming magic!