Swimming at the 1973 World Aquatics Championships – Men's 200 metre backstroke

Men's 200 metre backstroke at the 1973 World Aquatics Championships
Dates	September 6, 1973
Competitors	29 from 19 nations
Winning time	2:01.87
Medalists
Roland Matthes    East Germany   Zoltán Verrasztó    Hungary   John Naber    United States
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The men's 200 metre backstroke competition of the swimming events at the 1973 World Aquatics Championships took place on September 6.

Records[]

Prior to the competition, the existing world and championship records were as follows.

World record	Roland Matthes (GDR)	2:02.82	Munich, West Germany	2 September 1972
Competition record	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

The following records were established during the competition:

Date	Event	Name	Nationality	Time	Record
6 September	Heat 1		Australia	2:09.81	CR
6 September	Heat 3	Mark Tonelli	Australia	2:09.55	CR
6 September	Heat 4	Roland Matthes	East Germany	2:06.75	CR
6 September	Final	Roland Matthes	East Germany	2:01.87	WR

Results[]

Heats[]

29 swimmers participated in 4 heats. The eight fastest times qualified for the final. ^[1][2][3]

Rank	Heat	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	4	-	Roland Matthes	East Germany	2:06.75	Q, CR
2	4	-	Zoltán Verrasztó	Hungary	2:07.49	Q
3	3	-	Mark Tonelli	Australia	2:09.55	Q, CR
4	1	-		Australia	2:09.81	Q, CR
5	3	-	John Naber	United States	2:10.13	Q
6	2	-		United States	2:10.22	Q
7	3	-	Massimo Nistri	Italy	2:11.03	Q
8	1	-	Róbert Rudolf	Hungary	2:11.22	Q
9	1	-	Colin Cunningham	Great Britain	2:11.74
10	3	-	Lutz Wanja	East Germany	2:12.08
11	2	-	Leif Ericsson	Sweden	2:12.09
12	2	-	Ian MacKenzie	Canada	2:12.21
13	1	-	Predrag Milos	Yugoslavia	2:12.38
14	2	-	Romulo Arantes	Brazil	2:12.93
15	4	-	Nenad Milos	Yugoslavia	2:13.48
16	4	-	Anders Sandberg	Sweden	2:13.72
17	2	-	Carlos Berrocal		2:14.31
18	4	-	J. Flores	Mexico	2:14.43
19	4	-	Karim Ressang		2:14.61
20	1	-		Brazil	2:15.97
21	3	-	Eduardo Pérez	Mexico	2:16.46
22	1	-	Steve Pickell	Canada	2:16.56
23	4	-			2:17.06
24	4	-	Piotr Dlucik	Poland	2:17.30
25	3	-	Helmut Podolan	Austria	2:18.30
26	2	-	Ramón Volcán		2:20.09
27	1	-	Evangelos Koskinas		2:24.19
–	2	-	Ali Gharbi		Did not start
–	3	-	Klaus Steinbach	West Germany	Did not start

Final[]

The results of the final are below.

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	-	Roland Matthes	East Germany	2:01.87	WR
	-	Zoltán Verrasztó	Hungary	2:05.89
	-	John Naber	United States	2:06.91
4	-		Australia	2:08.16
5	-		United States	2:08.17
6	-	Mark Tonelli	Australia	2:09.63
7	-	Massimo Nistri	Italy	2:10.11
8	-	Róbert Rudolf	Hungary	2:11.42

References[]