THOMAS Rupprath broke the world short-course 100 metre backstroke record in Melbourne on Sunday, but only after the German team lodged a protest against his disqualification. Judges at the Australian leg of the World Cup had disqualified Rupprath for swimming past the 15m underwater mark. The German team protested and a jury agreed after watching frame-by- frame television evidence. Rupprath's time of 50.58 seconds beat Neil Walker's previous record by seventeen hundredths of a second. The German holds three other short-course world records -- the 50m backstroke, and the 100m and 200m butterfly marks. "I wanted to try to swim the world record in the heats and it was a very fast time. Thanks to the referee who says it is a new world record," said Rupprath after a 90-minute hearing. "My reaction was that I didn't know why I was disqualified. I looked to my coach and he didn't know why either," he said. "I am correct. I made 12 kicks underwater after the start. I did it in the 50m backstroke and I was not disqualified."
