Olympics-Swimming-Hungary's Kos wins men's 200m backstroke gold

By Alan Baldwin

PARIS (Reuters) - Hubert Kos won the men's 200 metres backstroke to give Hungary a first gold of the Paris Olympics on Thursday while Apostolos Christou took Greece's first medal in a swimming race not held in open water.

The 2023 world champion came from behind to touch out in one minute 54.26 seconds -- 0.56 ahead of silver medallist Christou -- at the La Defense Arena after being third at the 100 metre mark.

Switzerland's Roman Mityukov took the bronze.

Christou led for the first 150 metres, with Kos then slotting into second and moving up a gear to power past the slowing Greek, whose medal made up for the agony of finishing fourth in the 100 backstroke last Monday.

"I don't believe what I have done because my goal here was the 100 backstroke," said Christou. "I went really fast in the first 100 and then I tried to keep up.

"It's the best achievement for me in my career, the best day of my life."

Kos has been working with U.S. great Michael Phelps' former coach Bob Bowman, who is also training France's triple gold winner Leon Marchand.

"I just kept swimming and swimming and you know, I was just happy to get my hand on the wall first," said the Hungarian.

"It was just a different race strategy today. I just knew that I have to do something like that to win. It doesn't really matter how I got there. The point is that I got there and I'm just really happy."

The last Greek swimmer to win an Olympic medal was Spyridon Gianniotis who finished second in the 10km open water marathon in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

Greece have otherwise not taken a medal in swimming since the Athens Games of 1896 and now-discontinued freestyle races for sailors which were held in the sea rather than a pool.

None of the top three swimmers from the Tokyo Olympics of 2021 featured in the 2024 final.

Britain's Tokyo bronze medallist Luke Greenbank was disqualified in the heats and 2021 silver medallist Ryan Murphy of the United States failed to qualify for the final. Russia's previous champion, Evgeny Rylov, was not competing.

Spain's world champion Hugo Gonzalez de Oliveira finished sixth, while Germany's Lukas Maertens, winner of the 400m freestyle gold, was last.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin; Additional reporting by Rohith Nair; Editing by Hugh Lawson)