The ongoing FINA World Cup Series stop in Tokyo has seen several swimming world records shattered in the past two days. On Sunday, China's Xu Jiayu joined the bandwagon as he set a new world record in the men's 100m backstroke, also adding a third gold medal to his envious medal tally at the swimming competition.
Xu was in lane five where he got off to a good start and kept getting faster in the final. The 23-year-old eventually went on to finish in 48.88 seconds, improving Russian Kliment Kolesnikov's earlier set world record mark by 0.02 seconds. Australia's Mitchell Larkin won the silver in 49.54 seconds and the bronze medal went to Japan's Masaki Kaneko.
The Chinese swimmer continued his golden streak in both men's 50m and 200m backstroke events like he did in the World Cup in Beijing last year.
China's Xu Jiayu competes during the men's 100m backstroke final on day three of the FINA Swimming World Cup at Tokyo Tatsumi International Swimming Center in Tokyo, Japan, November 11, 2018. /VCG Photo
Xu competed for China at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London before winning a silver medal in the 100m backstroke at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
The prolific swimmer from east China's Zhejiang Province is also the current national record holder in backstroke races in all distances (50, 100, and 200 meters).
At the 2016 short course world championships, Xu won the bronze medal in the 100m backstroke event while at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, he won gold medals in both 50m and 200m backstroke events.