all three of his events, set three Olympic records and one world record, and was named as one of the stars of the 2016 Summer Olympics by the International Olympic Committee. 2017 NCAA Championships At the 2017 NCAA championships, Murphy completed his four-for-four sweep of the 100- and 200-yard backstroke events, becoming only the fourth man in NCAA history to sweep 100- and 200-yard events of a single stroke four years in a row after John Nabor (backstroke), Pablo Morales (butterfly), and Brendan Hansen (breaststroke). Murphy also placed third in the 200-yard IM, leading after the breastroke leg but overtaken in freestyle. World Championships At the 2017 US National Championships, the qualifying meet for the 2017 World Aquatics Championships, Murphy won the 200-meter backstroke and placed second to Matt Grevers in the 100-meter backstroke to qualify for the World Championships later that year. At the 2017 World Swimming Championships in Budapest, Murphy placed third in the 100-meter backstroke behind Xu Jiayu and Grevers and second in the 200-meter backstroke behind Evgeny Rylov and ahead of countryman and former college teammate Jacob Pebley. Murphy also earned gold medals by swimming in the prelims on the 4×100-meter medley and mixed medley relays. The mixed medley relay set a World and Championship record time of 3:40.28 in the prelims, a record later broken by in the US team in finals. 2018 2018 Pan Pacific Championships During the 2018 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in August 2018 in Tokyo, Japan, Murphy won three gold medals: one in the 100-meter backstroke, one in the 200-meter backstroke, and one in the 4x100-meter medley relay. Murphy's strong finish to the Championships, winning two gold medals on the final day of competition, was noted by Jacksonville newspaper The Florida Times-Union. His gold medal performance in the 200-meter backstroke with a time of 1:53.57 established a new Championships record that was over 1.5 seconds faster than the silver medalist in the event, Ryosuke Irie. Murphy opened up to Reuters after his success at the Championships, expressing he hoped that swimming in a pool close to where swimming competitions for the 2020 Summer Olympics would be held would help quell his superstitions concerning his performance at the upcoming Olympic Games. USA Swimming took notice of Murphy's swims at the 2018 Pan Pacific Championships and nominated him for the "Relay Performance of the Year", "Male Race of the Year", and "Male Athlete