Greek swimmer Apostolos Siskos set a new Panhellenic record in the 200m backstroke at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha, Qatar, advancing to the semi-finals with the best time of all qualifiers.
18 year old Siskos is now in contention to become the first Greek teenage swimmer to qualify for a men's or women's World Championship final. He will need to finish in the top eight in his semi-final heat to advance to the final, which will be held tomorrow.
This is a great achievement for Siskos, who is one of Greece's rising stars in swimming. He has already had a successful career at the junior level, and this performance shows that he is now ready to compete at the senior level. If he can qualify for the final, it would be a major breakthrough for him and for Greek swimming.
Siskos, who entered the competition with a personal best of 1:56.79, shaved off over a tenth of a second to clock in at 1:56.64 in the preliminaries. This not only put him in first place for the semi-finals, but it also broke the previous Greek record of 1:56.72 set by Apostolos Christou in 2022.
Siskos was the only swimmer to go sub-1:57.00 in the preliminaries, with the next fastest qualifiers being Dutchman Kai Van Westering (1:57.29) and South African Peter Ketch (1:57.90). The top 16 swimmers advanced to the semi-finals, which will be held later today at 19:33 local time.
