Missy Franklin defends 200m backstroke title

Missy Franklin

Barcelona - Missy Franklin swam to the gold medal in the final of the women’s 200m backstroke event at the 15th World Swimming Championships here.

The 18-year-old led from start to finish to win in a new championship record of 2:04.76 Saturday, reports Xinhua.

This is her fifth gold of the championships. Despite her young age, she has successfully defended the world title she won in 2011.

“It felt awesome and it was a great feat. It’s hard to understand what I have done. The 200m backstroke is my favourite event. I don’t know what my limit is and I have so many chances to win medals. It is an honour every time I get into the water,” she said.

However, the young American admitted that it was tough to follow such a demanding schedule in eight days of competition.

“It never gets easy, there are a lot of great swimmers out there and every race is tough,” she said.

“It takes an enormous amount of emotional control when you are racing this much, although I can handle one race a day without too many problems,” said Franklin, who remains down to earth despite being a national hero with five medals so far here to add to the four golds she won in Olympics.

“It has changed my whole life but I am still the same girl. I have been able to meet my favourite actors and actresses and so on but all of this has come from the passion I feel for swimming. Our secret is to have fun because we all love what we do,” said Missy.