2025 World Championship Previews: Fast And Frantic 100 Backstroke Promises Plenty Of Intrigue

2025 World Championships

• July 27 – August 3, 2025 (pool swimming)
• Singapore, Singapore
• World Aquatics Championships Arena
• LCM (50m)
• Meet Central
• Live Results
• SwimSwam Preview Index

BY THE NUMBERS – MEN’S 100 BACKSTROKE

• World Record: 51.60 – Thomas Ceccon, Italy (2022)
• World Junior Record: 52.08 – Miron Lifintsev, Russia (2024)
• Olympic Record: 51.85 – Ryan Murphy, United States (2016)
• 2023 World Champion – Ryan Murphy (USA), 52.22

It was three stalwarts of the last Olympic quad (triad?) on the podium in Paris, with Thomas Ceccon, Xu Jiayu and Ryan Murphy taking the top three spots. One of those will not return in Singapore, as Ryan Murphy sits out the 2025 season, but the field will be boosted by the return of a pair of Russian swimmers currently ranking first and third in the world this year.

As Murphy is joined by fellow sub-52 backstroke and countryman Hunter Armstrong in watching the World championships this year from the sidelines, you would be forgiven for thinking that the field may be subdued, especially in a post-Olympic year. Instead, we have seen a stunning 11 men break 53 seconds so far this season, six of whom are under 52.5. The race for top spot is shaping up to be frenetic.

The World Leaders

There are four men within two-tenths of a second at the top of this season’s world rankings, all of whom swam their times within a week of each other in April. None of them have yet won world or Olympic gold.

Kliment Kolesnikov – The Favourite?

Kolesnikov took silver in his last appearance on the international stage at Tokyo 2021, finishing two-hundredths of a second behind compatriot Evgeny Rylov. Since then he’s gone from strength to strength, and is the owner of the second fastest swim in history with his 51.82 from 2022. He has the top time this year of 52.04, and will be gunning for his first world title in this event in Singapore.

Since his world leading time at the Russian championships, he’s been 54.08 and 53.91 at the Mare Nostrum stops in Monaco and Barcelona. More recently, he posted a time of 56.22 to miss finals at the Sette Colli meet, which may well indicate he’s been in heavy training, and will be peaking at the end of July. He’s not raced at a major meet in May since 2021, but has managed to drop time from April to the summer in each of the last two years.

That’s a good sign for him, although he was much slower last year than in 2023. He was only 52.64 in the summer of 2024 having been 52.80 in April, whereas he went from 52.54 to 51.82 the year before. Having posted his fastest ever in season time at the Russian Championships this year, he may only need a slight drop for gold in Singapore.

Kolesnikov is still only 25, despite being seven years removed from his 52.53 World junior record with which he won European gold in 2018 and eight years removed from his first World Championships. With the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s ban from international competition due to their ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Kolesnikov has only competed at two long course world championships and one Olympic Games. He’s yet to make the kind of mark on international long course competition that his talent indicates that he can, missing finals in 2017 and 2019 and taking silver in 2021. This is a big summer for him, and this event is the key.

Miron Lifintsev – The Young Pretender

From one Junior World record holder to another, Lifintsev has had a whirlwind last 18 months since first setting the World Junior record with a swim of 52.34 in April 2024. He lowered that mark to 52.08 later that summer, ranking third in the world for the 2023-24 season, and was 52.15 this April to again rank third in the world as he comes into Singapore. He followed that with a 52.23 medley relay leadoff for the St Petersburg team that broke the Russian National Record, and in the interceding months he won gold at short course Worlds in December in another World Junior record of 48.76 He has shown an ability to be at his absolute best on the biggest stages, and with his wicked back half speed he’ll be incredibly dangerous in this final.

Miron LIFINTSEV
credit Andrea Staccioli/Deepbluemedia

Lifintsev has grown from unproven teenager to world star without the kind of pressure that usually accompanies such a rise. He’s shown a maturity and poise that should serve him well in his first international long course meet. He holds the fourth-fastest personal best of the swimmers in this field, and it would be a shock not to see him in the final in Singapore. He showed at World short course that he can progress through the rounds, and has the luxury of both fantastic front end speed and a relentless last 25 that comes from his top-notch pure swim speed.

He’s run down Kolesnikov before, doing so when winning Russian nationals in 2024, held off Hubert Kos in Budapest in December, and did the same to Thomas Ceccon at the Sette Colli where he went 53.23. He’s fearless and will not be either afraid of or overawed by anyone in this final.

Oliver Morgan – Britain’s Breakthrough Backstroker

Team GB had been crying out for a world class 100 backstroke for years, and although it may not have been obvious at the time those prayers were answered in April 2023. That was when Morgan won his first British title, out-touching Cam Brooker by just 0.02 with a late lunge to take the win in a time of 53.92.

The Birmingham swimmer has shown a knack for getting his hand to the wall when it matters, adding wins in similarly tight races at the 2022 British University Championships against Andreas Vazaois (55.20-55.22) and the 200 back at 2023 British Trials against Brodie Williams (1:57.17-1.57.18). However, what has been most impressive since then is the progress the Gary Humpage-trained swimmer has made in this event.

Morgan has dropped over a second and a half in the two years since his first British title, going from 53.77 to 52.12. He’s dropped six-tenths from the previous British record of 52.73 held by Liam Tancock, and progressed from World semi-finalist in 2023 to Olympic finalist in 2024. Since he began University in 2021, which was also when he began focusing on swimming for the first time, he’s gone from 56.96 to 52.12 and has set best times in each of the last four seasons. He did miss the Sette Colli meet at the end of June citing personal reasons, but there is no indication that he will not be competing and at his best in Singapore.

GBR – Great Britain
MORGAN Oliver GOODBURN Archie PETERS Jacob RICHARDS Matthew

He swam 52.8 three times at the Paris Olympics, becoming Great Britain’s first world or Olympic finalist in the event since 2015. He broke 53 seconds five times last year and has done so three times already in 2025, peaking with his 52.12 National record at the British Championships in April. He was long on the finish there but still ranks second in the world in 2024-25. With the levelling up he’s done over the previous two years, a podium is the next step – and one that is well and truly within reach.

Hubert Kos – The All-Rounder

Kos has focused far more on the 200 backstroke than the 100 ever since switching focus from the 200 IM to this stroke, but after setting a National Record in the heats in Paris and then again at his home short course Worlds in December to finish second it seemed like he could be a threat at this distance as well. He proved those thoughts exactly right at Hungarian Nationals in April with a swim of 52.24, half a second under the 52.78 he went at the Olympics and at the time the fastest in the world in 2024-25.

With his ultra-smooth stroke and and relentless closing speed from the 200 to to along with the speed he’s added, he should become a force in the 100. Kos has shown real progress under Bob Bowman at Texas this year, which resulted in a dominant showing at the NCAA championships in March and some fantastic short course swims at all three backstroke distances at short course Worlds. In long course, he has gone from 53.11 in 2023 to 52.78 in 2024, then down to a 52.24 in 2025. In the previous two years he has dropped time and set a National Record in the summer – doing so again could be key to getting on the podium.

One slight issue for Kos is his versatility. He holds top-6 rankings in four events this year – 100 back, 200 back, 100 fly, 200 IM – and could well end up on Hungary’s 4×100 freestyle relay as well. Kolesnikov and Ceccon are the only other swimmers in this field likely to swim more than just the backstroke events, and neither is likely to have an individual schedule of four events. Backstroke would appear to be the focus for Kos, especially as the reigning 200 backstroke champion, but he may not be quite as laser-focused in on this event as some of his competitors.

Podium Threats

Outside of the top four so far this season, there are three swimmers who will believe they can win here. Thomas Ceccon and Xu Jiayu are previous world champions, but Apostolos Christou is yet to win a (summer) world or Olympic medal in this event – despite three swims of 52.2 or better.

Ceccon is the biggest name here, a world champion in 2022, where he set the World Record, and Olympic champion in Paris last year. He’s only been 52.84 this year, ranking 11th overall and 10th among swimmers that will be in Singapore, but spent several months training with Dean Boxall in Australia and is yet to swim this event truly tapered. He swam at Australian Trials rather than the Italian Championships, where he forwent the 100 backstroke in favor of the 100 fly, although he had already done enough to make the Italian team thanks to that 52.84 from March.

Thomas Ceccon (photo: Jack Spitser)

He’s been consistently at the top of the season-end rankings since the Tokyo Olympics, and he would be the most shocking name to miss the final. He’s finished no lower than fourth at the last four major international meets he’s contested, and rebounded from taking silver in Fukuoka (52.27) to swim his third fastest time ever (52.00) to win Olympic gold in Paris.

As the only man with multiple swims in the top-five all-time and as the incumbent major champion, Ceccon would not be an unlikely winner, however the competition is fiercer than ever this year. He’s not yet shown all his cards, but a pair of aces may be what he requires in Singapore.

Xu has broken 53 seconds in every season since 2013 bar one, and has a pair of World titles from 2017 and 2019. He did not medal again until last season, which showcased a return to the kind of form which saw him take those titles – two swims of 52.0 and six of 52.3 or better. He was second behind Ceccon in Paris, but his time from the semi-finals would have been just two-hundredths from gold rather than 0.32 away.

He has been 52.49 so far this season, and will be in the medal hunt again this year. He has a tendency to go out fast (the only swimmer out under 25 in the Olympic final), but has shown that he can back up that early speed. If Xu can save his best for the final he’ll be in it until the last stroke.

Finally, Apostolos Christou has been a tremendous force in the 100 backstroke over the last three years and in any other era would be a medalist at a minimum. He finished fifth at the 2022 world championships and fourth at the 2024 Olympics, the latter by just two-hundredths of a second.

He’s taken the Greek record in the event down by nearly a second from the super suited 53.03 that Aristeidis Grigoriadis swam in 2009. That improvement came over the course of just 13 months between May 2021 and June 2022, but he has been 52.2 twice since then and 52.38 already this year, with another two swims under 52.6.

He was last year’s European champion in a time that would have won Olympic silver (52.23), but hasn’t hit his season best in a World or Olympic final so far, setting his current National Record in the semi-finals in 2022. With the competition this year he would almost certainly need to do so to land on the podium.

Finals Contenders

Ksawery Masiuk first set the Polish record in the 100 backstroke back in 2022, where he was 52.58 in the world semi-finals before finishing 6th in the final, and placing 6th again in 2023. However, he missed out on the final in Paris by half a second in 53.44, and had only been third at the European Championships earlier in the summer in 53.56. He’s been sub-53 twice already this season though, the second of which broke that Polish record as he went 52.55 to rank 8th in the world so far this year. That may not yet be enough for the podium, but the man who holds all of the top-25 Polish times ever in the event is a strong contender to be in the final and one to watch if he is.

Pieter Coetzee broke his South African record twice in Paris, once in the semi finals (52.63) and again in the final (52.58) as he finished fifth, becoming the highest placing African swimmer ever in this event. He’s already been 52.71 this season, continuing a trend of being 52-point at the South African Championships after being 52.78 in 2023 and 52.89 in 2024, and should be a serious contender to final. He was the bronze medalist in the 200 in Doha last year and went on to break the African record in the same event in Paris, and that back end speed should serve him well against a tightly bunched field.

Yohann Ndoye-Brouard has cemented himself as France’s premier 100 backstroke making the final at his home Olympics, setting a new best time of 52.48 to lead off the mixed medley relay and then leading off for the bronze-medal-winning men’s medley relay. He won French trials this year in 52.81 to rank 10th in the world, and has been a consistent world finalist since Tokyo.

Yohann Ndoye-Brouard (photo: Jack Spitser)

He won bronze at the European championships in both 2021 and 2022, but is yet to make the podium at a World championships, placing fourth in 2022 in his best performance. He’ll need to drop some time to be in with a podium chance and potentially even to make the top-eight, and his tendency to back-half this race could work against him in that regard.

His countryman Mewen Tomac will be in the field, and has a best of 52.86. In every year prior to this one that would be enough to final, but such is the depth that even hitting that may not be enough. He was 15th in Paris last year and missed the final, and has a season best of 53.27 from French Nationals, so could be on the outside looking in.

Ollie Morgan’s compatriot Jonny Marshall was 53.03 last year, and was 53.21 to take second at British Trials this time around and make the team for Singapore. He added time at the Olympics last year, missing the final in 14th having gone 53.46, and will need to turn that around this year with so many swimmers ahead of him in the world rankings. He has dropped from 44.12 to 43.22 in yards this season though, and may be hitting his taper later this year. He has an outside chance of the final, but will need to be in the 52s to make that happen.

The Americans

The last time that the US men did not put a swimmer into the 100 backstroke final, dimetrodons were discussing whether these new-fangled ‘dinosaur’ things would be sticking around or not. This year, not only do the U.S. not have a swimmer in the top-10 in the world rankings, they are more likely than not to have both swimmers miss out on the final for the first time.

Tommy Janton was the surprise winner at U.S. nationals as he dropped six-tenths from his best to go 53.00, but he’s only been under 54 seconds on five occasions. He may not be done dropping time this year, but it would be a surprise to see him in the 52s. Jack Aikins does have a 52-point swim on record, having gone 52.74 at last year’s Olympic trials, but was 53.19 this year and has only that one swim under 53. His time this year is his second-fastest ever, but he set a new best in the 200 in Indianapolis so may not have much more to drop this season.

Ranked just 12th and 13th this season the U.S. are set to get a taste of a post-Murphy and Armstrong era, and right now it’s looking a little bleak.

The Verdict

Whilst Ceccon has been the man to beat over the last three years, he’s branched out to additional events this year at the expense of this one. With his being the first year of the Olympic cycle it’s a great time for him to experiment with his lineup, but that may mean he is not quite at 100% in this event. He’s still a surefire podium threat, but Kliment Kolesnikov is aiming for his first long course world title and holds the #1 time in the world this year. Ceccon is the World Record holder and could well still have enough to take gold, but we’ve just nudged Kolesnikov ahead of the Italian this year.

Ollie Morgan has been improving incrementally for the last four years, and has gone from a plucky semi-finalist to a serious threat for the podium. He’s swum either faster or pretty well on his bests at international competitions and has looked in fantastic form this year. With his ability to get the touch when it matters and his phenomenal swim speed in the final quarter, he’s our pick for bronze ahead of Miron Lifintsev and Xu Jiayu. Either one of those two could steal the spot from Morgan though, and if Christou puts his big swim together in the final it will come down to hundredths.

It took 52.95 to make the Paris final, the first time ever that a sub-53 has missed out, and it could well be even faster this year. Semi-finals will be cut-throat, and there could be some big names that miss out on a top-eight spot with a slightly too relaxed swim at the wrong time. Those in the second semi-final may well have a big advantage.

SwimSwam’s Picks

Dark Horse: Miroslav Knedla (Czech Republic) — Knedla was the World Junior champion back in 2023 in what is still his best time and the Czech Record of 53.28, where he also took gold in the 50 back. He made the final at the Doha World Championships where he finished seventh, before placing 12th in the semifinals in Paris in 53.44, although he had been 53.41 in the heats. However, in his first season at Indiana he’s shown good progress in yards and set new national records in the short course 50 backstroke and 100 IM, and is young enough that the drop needed to make the top-eight is not out of reach. He’s been 53.74 so far this year and if he has a big swim to break 53 seconds in the heats, momentum could carry him through the semi-final gauntlet and into the final.