Murphy, Adrian Close Pan Pacs With Gold
Tim Binning/TheSwimPictures.com

Murphy, Adrian Close Pan Pacs With Gold

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TOKYO, Japan - Gold in the 200-meter backstroke finished a backstroke double for Ryan Murphy and he teamed with fellow Cal men's swimming star Nathan Adrian to help Team USA take gold in the 400 medley relay on the final day of the Pan Pacific Championships in Tokyo.

With a gold medal in the 100 back already under his belt, Murphy took on the 200 back and rolled right to the top seed with a meet record effort in morning prelims. That only set the stage for more fireworks in the evening as he made the turn at the 100 under world record pace and finished in a time of 1:35.57 that was over a second and a half faster than second place Ryosuke Irie of Japan and a tenth of a second better than his record-setting morning swim.

Murphy wasn't done for the night as he returned to the pool to swim the leadoff leg of Team USA's 400 medley relay. Posting a time of 52.70 to put the Americans right in the hunt, Murphy gave way to Andrew Wilson and Caeleb Dressel with Team USA eventually taking the lead.

That left Adrian to close out the race with the freestyle and a tight duel got even closer when Japan's Katsumi Nakamura narrowed the gap over the first 50 meters. Adrian wouldn't be denied though, coming home just faster than Nakamura to finish in 47.71, eight-hundreths faster than Nakamura. Those hundreths made all the difference as the United States finished with a final time of 3:30.20 and Japan touched the wall in 3:30.25.

Josh Prenot also made history on the final day of competition, swimming to a meet record of 2:08.02 in the prelims of the 200 breaststroke. The Olympic silver medalist from Rio came back to finish fifth in the evening session as Japan's Ippei Watanabe lowered the meet record to earn gold.

With three medals on the final day of action, Cal men's swimmers finished the four-day meet with a total of six medals. Murphy claimed three, all gold, while Andrew Seliskar took gold in the 800 free relay and silver in the 200 free. Adrian's relay gold completed the medal haul for the Bears.
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