The Pioneering Pace Of Backstroke Ace Igor Polianski
Igor Polianski was a big player in the backstroke submarinery of 1988 but he claimed 200m Olympic gold in Seoul on the strength of his swift turns and efficient style, was once described by East German observers as "the closest we're seen anyone come to the brilliant technique of Roland Matthes".
On this day in 1985, Soviet ace Igor Polianski set the first of his four World backstroke records, and the only one he established over 200m, the event in which he would claim Olympic gold three years later at the Seoul 1988 Games.
The global 200m standard had changed hands only twice since the reign of East Germany's Roland Matthes, the Rolls-Royce of backstroke and to this day the biggest hauler of backstroke World marks in history (16 long-course standards held between 1967 and 1976: 100m - 7; 200m - 9).
John Naber became the first man to break 2 minutes when he clocked 1:59.19 for Olympic gold at Montreal 1976. It took seven years for that standard to fall, a 1:58.93 from fellow American Rick Carey in August 1983 at U.S. Nationals the first stroke towards a 1:58.86 by the same man at U.S. Olympic Trials in June 1984.
And there the mark stayed until Sergei Zabolotnov became the first Soviet swimmer to own the record, with a 1:58.41 at the Friendship Games in Moscow in August the same year, after the Soviet Union did to its athletes what the United States and others had done to their own four years earlier when Moscow hosted the Games, the story of the 1980 and 1984 boycotts well documented.
On March 3, 1985, at the GDR vs URS Duel in Erfurt, birthplace of Matthes, Polianski shaved the 200m mark down to 1:58.14.
Craig Lord
