2025 World Championships
- July 27 – August 3, 2025 (pool swimming)
- Singapore, Singapore
- World Aquatics Championships Arena
- LCM (50m)
- Meet Central
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The men’s 200m freestyle was one of the most highly anticipated events of these World Championships and the race lived up to expectations.
When the white water settled, it was 20-year-old reigning Olympic champion David Popovici of Romania who got to the wall first, producing a stellar time of 1:43.53.
He overtook American Luke Hobson who was leading until about the final 30m, with Hobson settling for silver in 1:43.84.
However, 18-year-old Tatsuya Murasa surprised the field with a huge personal best of 1:44.54 to take the bronze.
Murasa’s time surpassed the Japanese national record of 1:44.65, set by Katsuhiro Matsumoto at his nation’s 2021 Olympic Trials.
Entering this competition, Murasa’s lifetime best rested at the 1:45.67 he notched earlier this year at the World Championship Trials as a 17-year-old. That rendered the teen the new national high school record holder as well as Japan’s 4th-swiftest performer of all time.
He dropped that PPB down to 1:45.39 in the semi-finals.
That means the teen hacked over a second off his previous PB entering this competition to earn Japan’s first medal of these World Championships.
| Murasa’s New 1:44.54 JPN Record | Matsumoto’s Old 1:44.65 JPN Record | Murasa’s Previous 1:45.67 PB |
| 24.51 | 24.17 | 24.62 |
| 26.56 | 26.25 | 27.03 |
| 26.81 | 27.35 | 27.13 |
| 26.66 | 26.88 | 26.89 |
This performance may be the catalyst to jumpstart some hardware hauling by Japan, with Taku Taniguchi also already producing a national record to claim the 2nd seed out of the heats of the men’s 50m breaststroke.
Olympic silver medalist Tomoyuki Matsushita will also be featured among the men’s 400m IM field while 34-year-old Satomi Suzuki will be among tonight’s women’s 100m breaststroke main event.
Does anyone know how tall this talented swimmer is? He seemed so much smaller than everyone else, but so fast!!
1:44.5 is a remarkable achievement for sure, but some people just hit their plateau quicker than others.
Teenage Popovici must have raised the standards so high for people to not get excited over an 18 year old going 1:44 mid and winning bronze at Worlds.
There’s was loads of excitement over in the live recap
Probably b/c Popovici hasn’t gotten much faster since. Back then I thought the phenom would have been in the 1:41s by now
just shows how lil of swimming u know
enlighten me dbone
Thorpe went 1.44 at 18 24 yrs ago.
Between Murasa, D’Ambrosio going 1.45.23, Sorensen and Zhangsuo going 1.45 high, the 200 free of the 2007s is both deep and super high level