Manuel picks up gold at world championships

Simone Manuel backed up her historic victory in Rio de Janeiro by rallying to beat Sweden’s world-record holder Sarah Sjostrom in the 100-meter freestyle at the world championships on Friday.

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY » Simone Manuel felt the pressure of being an Olympic champion. It sure didn’t bother her at the world championships.

The 20-year-old Texan backed up her historic victory in Rio de Janeiro by rallying to beat Sweden’s world-record holder Sarah Sjostrom in the 100-meter freestyle Friday.

Last summer, Manuel became the first African-American woman to win an individual swimming gold at the Olympics when she tied Canada’s Penny Oleksiak for the top spot on the podium.

“It was a lot of pressure knowing that I was the Olympic gold medalist in that event,” Manuel said. “I had a lot of nerves.”

Another U.S. Olympic champion came up short in his bid for an individual gold in Budapest.

Ryan Murphy settled for silver in the 200 backstroke behind Russia’s Evgeny Rylov, while another American, Jacob Pebley, took the bronze.

Murphy swept the backstroke events last summer in Rio , but he hasn’t been quite as sharp in Budapest. He took bronze in the 100 and simply couldn’t catch Rylov in the longer event, the Russian finishing in 1 minute, 53.61 second to beat Murphy by a comfortable 0.60 seconds.