At the XXXII Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, masters of backstroke competed for medals in the 200-meter distance. In this type of men's program, in which 29 applicants for awards participated, Turkmenistan was represented by the 26-year-old standard-bearer of our team at the opening parade of the Games, international master of sports from Ashgabat Merdan Atayev.

Performing in the first preliminary heat, he finished with a time of 2 minutes 3.68 seconds and improved his previous achievement at this distance by 3.38 seconds.

The Russian Yevgeny Rylov excelled in this type of program, becoming a two-time Olympic champion. In the final, he showed a result of 1 minute 53.27 seconds and updated the Olympic record previously held by the athlete from the United States Tyler Clary (1.53.41). The second was Ryan Murphy (USA) - 1.54.15. Bronze from Briton Luke Greenbank - 1.54.72.

Thus, the Turkmen swimmers completed their performance at the Tokyo Olympics.

Earlier, in the 100-meter backstroke swim, M. Ataev finished with a time of 55.24 seconds. This is 0.10 seconds better than the 2019 World Cup in Gwangju and 1.10 seconds better than the previous Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

The youngest in our team, 19-year-old Daria Semyonova, swam 100 meters breaststroke in 1 minute 16.37 seconds. This was 0.36 seconds better than the 2019 World Championships in Gwangju, Republic of Korea. Compared to the previous Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, where Daria made her debut at the age of 14, she improved her result at this distance by 3.47 seconds.

Swimming is the second medal sport in the Olympics. Athletes compete for 37 sets of awards: 18 for men and women + mixed combined relay. More awards are played only in athletics (48).

Correspondent «GA»