{"id":214624,"date":"2016-07-30T11:00:33","date_gmt":"2016-07-30T18:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=214624"},"modified":"2016-07-29T12:33:33","modified_gmt":"2016-07-29T19:33:33","slug":"swimming-world-olympic-predictions-mens-100-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/swimming-world-olympic-predictions-mens-100-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Swimming World Olympic Predictions: Men’s 100 Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

By David Rieder<\/em><\/p>\n

The men\u2019s 100 back features two young backstrokers who have charged to the front of the world rankings over the past two years (the USA\u2019s Ryan Murphy<\/strong> and Australia\u2019s Mitch Larkin<\/strong>), a veteran returning after narrowly missing the Olympic podium four years ago (France\u2019s Camille Lacourt<\/strong>), a 30-year-old making his Olympic debut (American David Plummer<\/strong>) and the Olympic bronze medalist from London (Japan\u2019s Ryosuke Irie<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

From such an impressive list of medal hopefuls, Larkin could have the edge after he was the world champion in both the 100 and 200 backstroke last year. But everyone will see him coming this time around, and he\u2019ll have to deal with Murphy and Plummer, who both excelled at the U.S. Olympic Trials last month, knocking defending gold medalist Matt Grevers<\/strong> off of the Olympic team.<\/p>\n

TALK ON DECK<\/strong><\/p>\n