FINA World Championships editorial coverage is proudly sponsored by SpeedoUSA. For all the latest coverage, check out our event coverage page.<\/p>\n
BARCELONA, Spain, August 3. FRANCE’s Camille Lacourt, the silver medalist in 2011, is looking to capture the world title in the men’s 50-meter backstroke this time around at the FINA World Championships.<\/p>\n
Lacourt clocked a top time of 24.39 in the sprint backstroke event, and could be looking at challenging his textile best of 24.07 from the 2010 European Championship during the finale. He also might have Liam Tancock’s world record of 24.04 from the 2009 World Championships in his sights heading into the finale as well.<\/p>\n
Lacourt’s compatriot Jeremy Stravius qualified second in 24.45 and is looking for more hardware after serving as France’s hero anchor en route to the country’s amazing victory in the men’s 400-meter freestyle relay.<\/p>\n
Israel’s Guy Barnea (24.73) qualified third, while USA’s Matt Grevers and Brazil’s Daniel Orzechowski tied for fourth-place overall with matching 24.79s. Barnea gave his Israeli record a run, but his 24.64 from the 2009 Maccabiah Games will remain on the books at least for another heat.<\/p>\n
Spain’s Aschwin Wildeboer Faber (24.90), Israel’s Jonatan Kopelev (24.95) and China’s Sun Xiaolei (24.95) all broke 25 seconds as well to make the finale, while The Netherlands’ Bastiaan Lijesen posted a 24.99 but just missed the finale in ninth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FINA World Championships editorial coverage is proudly sponsored by SpeedoUSA. For all the latest coverage, check out our event coverage page. BARCELONA, Spain, August 3. FRANCE’s Camille Lacourt, the silver<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,24690,10],"tags":[54019],"class_list":["post-38405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-frontpage","category-world","tag-2013-fina-world-long-course-championships"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n