By John Lohn<\/p>\n
MONTREAL, Canada, July 28. THERE\u2019S a chance at a repeat from Athens. The qualifying order of the top three places in the men\u2019s 200-meter backstroke was identical to the medal finishes at last summer\u2019s Olympic Games, with the United States\u2019 Aaron Peirsol leading the way in 1:56.60. The Olympic champ and world-record holder appeared to cruise in the second semifinal.<\/p>\n
Austria\u2019s Markus Rogan, who spent his collegiate career at Stanford University, was the second-swiftest qualifier, as he stroked through the four-lap event in 1:57.16. Rogan was the silver medalist in Athens and was followed in the third qualifying position by Romania\u2019s Razvan Florea, who took bronze in Greece. Rogan and Florea both raced in Peirsol\u2019s heat.<\/p>\n
American Ryan Lochte won the first semifinal with a swim of 1:58.17 and is slotted fourth for the final while Russia\u2019s Arkady Vyatchanin will enter the championship heat in fifth at 1:58.60. The sixth through eighth slots were taken by Japan\u2019s Tomomi Morita (1:58.70), Croatia\u2019s Gordan Kozulj (1:58.74) and Japan\u2019s Takashi Nakano (1:58.91).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By John Lohn MONTREAL, Canada, July 28. THERE\u2019S a chance at a repeat from Athens. The qualifying order of the top three places in the men\u2019s 200-meter backstroke was identical<\/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":[10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n