Larkin Lights Up Doha With Australian/C’Wealth Records in 100 Back

Following in his own footsteps from the 200m backstroke record-setting swim in Tokyo he threw down just last week, Australian Mitch Larkin got to work on the record books yet again, this time in the 100m distance.  

While competing at the Doha stop of the FINA World Cup Series, Larkin fired off an incredible 100m backstroke time of 52.26, a mark which shaved over a tenth off his own gold medal-winning standard of 52.38 from the 2015 FINA World Championships just this past summer.

Larkin’s 52.38 outing from Kazan set both a new Australian and Commonwealth record. Today’s time of 52.26, however, wiped that record right off the books and falls only three tenths of a second short of the seemingly untouchable World Record mark of 51.94 held by American Aaron Peirsol since the supersuit era.

Here are the split comparisons between Larkin’s Kazan swim, his Doha swim and Peirsol’s World Record-setting swim from 2009:

Larkin in Kazan – 25.28, 27.10 = 52.38
Larkin in Doha – 25.32, 26.94 = 52.26
Peirsol’s WR – 25.35, 26.59 = 51.94

Comparing his splits to the legendary Peirsol, the time difference lay in the back half, where Peirsol was a solid three tenths faster.  Quickening up on the final 50 will prove to be Larkin’s ticket to cracking the Peirsol World Record code and the Aussie has proven via his incremental improvements that he is well on his way to doing just that.

Larkin’s time today ranks as the 8th-fastest performance of all-time and makes Larkin the 6th-fastest performer in the history of the event.

1. Aaron Peirsol, USA – 51.94, 2009
2. Matt Grevers, USA – 52.08, 2012
3. Camille Lacourt, FRA – 52.11, 2010
4. Matt Grevers, USA – 52.16, 2012
5. Ryan Murphy, USA – 52.18, 2015
6. Aaron Peirsol, USA 52.18, 2009
7. Ryosuke Irie, Japan – 52.24, 2009
8. Mitch Larkin, Australia – 52.26, 2015