Dmitriy Balandin of Kazakhstan, swimming with the slowest seed time, pulled a gigantic upset over the favored Americans and Japanese to give his country its first-ever swimming medal.
Yasuhiro Koseki raced out to an early lead, going under world-record pace through the halfway mark, but Balandin was hot on his tail, chasing down the swimmer from Japan at the wall and touching first at 2 minutes, 7.46 seconds as four other swimmers were within 0.40 seconds for the win.
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American Josh Prenot, who owned the top time in the world this year, earned the silver with a time of 2:07.53, while Russia’s Anton Chupkov clocked in at third (2:07.70).
Kevin Cordes, who won the silver medal for Team USA at last year’s World Championships, finished a disappointing last in the final (2:08.34).
