The men's 200 metre backstroke event at the 2024 Summer Olympics was held from 31 July to 1 August 2024 at Paris La Défense Arena.

Other contenders were Great Britain's Luke Greenbank, Hugo González of Spain and Roman Mityukov of Switzerland.

Greenbank was eliminated in the heats after getting disqualified for swimming more than 15 metres underwater, while Murphy did not qualify for the final.

At the 2023 World Championships, Hungary's Hubert Kós won gold, with Murphy taking silver.

[6][7] Finally, the rest of the spaces were filled by athletes who had met the Olympic Consideration Time (OCT), which was 01:58.09 for this event.

[11][12] China's Xu Jaiyu, the sixth seed for the event, did not show up to his heat, without giving an explanation.

[19][20] Over the final 50 metres, Kós overtook Christou to claim the gold medal, finishing with a time of 1:54.26.

[26] SwimSwam said his performance was "one of the biggest surprises of the meet", with him being the oldest swimmer in the final and having the slowest personal best.