The first major competition of the Olympic year has lost another one of its stars.
Ryan Murphy, the reigning world champion in the men’s 100 backstroke and a gold medal favorite for this summer’s Paris Olympics, has scratched out of the Pro Swim Series stop in Knoxville due to illness.
Murphy’s withdrawal marks the second major scratch from the competition, with three-time Olympic medalist Regan Smith pulling out on the weekend.
The Cal Berkeley training group is coming off of altitude camp at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, and Murphy said the illness “came on in the last two days” at the end of camp.
“Most guys that have been sick were 4-6 days out (out of the water),” Murphy told SwimSwam. “I’m assuming I’ll be in that range. Basically just unfortunate timing for this meet.”
The 28-year-old was coming into the meet as the top seed in both the men’s 100 back (51.97) and 200 back (1:54.52), and he was also entered in the 100 free where he was ranked 43rd (50.04).
A triple Olympic champion in the men’s 100 back, 200 back and 400 medley relay at the 2016 Games in Rio, Murphy won silver in the 200 back, bronze in the 100 back and a second consecutive gold in the 400 medley relay at the Tokyo Games in the summer of 2021.
The former NCAA star at Cal secured his first individual long course world title in the 200 back at the 2022 World Championships in Budapest, and then last summer in Fukuoka, he won the 100 back world title for the first time (LC) while also winning gold on the U.S. men’s 400 medley relay.
In 2023, Murphy was the second-fastest swimmer in the world in the 200 back, trailing Hungarian world champion Hubert Kos, and Murphy ranked third in the 100 back behind Russian Kliment Kolesnikov and China’s Xu Jiayu.
With Murphy’s withdrawal, Hunter Armstrong takes over as the top seed in the 100 back and Shaine Casas now ranks first in the 200 back.
The 2024 Knoxville Pro Swim kicks off tonight (Jan. 10) and will run through Saturday, Jan. 13, at the Allan Jones Intercollegiate Aquatic Center.
With the amount of stars at the meet and it being virus season we would expect at least one superstar to get sick I guess.
Washed anyways who cares
Seems like many virus’ are going around, cold, RSV, covid.
what’s going ON??? 😭😭
There will also be a substantial number of scratches (by choice) from this meet. Gonna be much a thinner field than the ominous “cap reached” message would seem to indicate. And most of the 18/Unders, who even show up, haven’t trained long course much (if at all) since August.
Thin meet.
This the season :/
“Marchand made out with Murphy” gets to be the next box we get to check on the ridiculous rumor bingo card.
“Now I don’t care who you are, that’s funny.”
~ Larry The Cable Guy