# Swimming at the 2003 World Aquatics Championships – Women's 200 metre backstroke

The Women's 200m Backstroke event at the 10th FINA World Aquatics Championships swam on 25–26 July 2003 in Barcelona, Spain. Preliminary heats swam during the morning session on July 25, with the top-16 finishers advancing to Semifinals that evening. The top-8 finishers then advanced to swim again in the Final the next evening.
At the start of the event, the World (WR) and Championship (CR) records were:
* WR: 2:06.62 swum by Krisztina Egerszegi (Hungary) on August 25, 1991 in Athens, Greece.
* CR: 2:07.40 swum by Cihong He (China) on September 11, 1994 in Rome, Italy

## Results
### Final

| Place | Swimmer | Nation | Time |
| 1 | Katy Sexton | Great Britain | 2:08.74 |
| 2 | Margaret Hoelzer | USA | 2:09.24 |
| 3 | Stanislava Komarova | Russia | 2:10.17 |
| 4 | Iryna Amshennikova | Ukraine | 2:10.82 |
| 5 | Hanae Ito | Japan | 2:10.95 |
| 6 | Jennifer Fratesi | Canada | 2:12.53 |
| 7 | Nicole Hetzer | Germany | 2:12.82 |
| 8 | Sarah Price | Great Britain | 2:13.78 |

### Semifinals

| Rank | Heat + Lane | Swimmer | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | S2 L4 | Stanislava Komarova | Russia | 2:09.39 | q |
| 2 | S2 L2 | Katy Sexton | Great Britain | 2:10.47 | q |
| 3 | S1 L4 | Iryna Amshennikova | Ukraine | 2:11.08 | q |
| 4 | S2 L6 | Hanae Ito | Japan | 2:11.13 | q |
| 5 | S2 L5 | Margaret Hoelzer | USA | 2:11.38 | q |
| 6 | S1 L3 | Sarah Price | Great Britain | 2:11.69 | q |
| 7 | S1 L1 | Nicole Hetzer | Germany | 2:12.15 | q |
| 8 | S1 L5 | Jennifer Fratesi | Canada | 2:12.36 | q |
| 9 | S2 L3 | Aya Terakawa | Japan | 2:13.09 | |
| 10 | S1 L7 | Hannah McLean | New Zealand | 2:13.39 | |
| 11 | S1 L6 | Alenka Kejžar | Slovenia | 2:13.50 | |
| 12 | S2 L8 | Anja Čarman | Slovenia | 2:14.58 | |
| 13 | S2 L7 | Louise Ørnstedt | Denmark | 2:14.61 | |
| 14 | S1 L8 | Kirsty Coventry | Zimbabwe | 2:15.20 | |
| 15 | S2 L1 | Sanja Jovanović | Croatia | 2:15.43 | |
| 16 | S1 L2 | Frances Adcock | Australia | 2:15.49 | |

### Preliminaries

| Rank | Heat+Lane | Swimmer | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | H3 L4 | Stanislava Komarova | Russia | 2:10.98 | q |
| 2 | H3 L3 | Iryna Amshennikova | Ukraine | 2:11.93 | q |
| 3 | H4 L5 | Margaret Hoelzer | United States | 2:12.35 | q |
| 4 | H5 L6 | Jennifer Fratesi | Canada | 2:12.72 | q |
| 5 | H5 L3 | Aya Terakawa | Japan | 2:12.79 | q |
| 6 | H5 L5 | Sarah Price | Great Britain | 2:12.82 | q |
| 7 | H3 L5 | Hanae Ito | Japan | 2:13.01 | q |
| 8 | H3 L6 | Alenka Kejžar | Slovenia | 2:13.32 | q |
| 9 | H4 L4 | Katy Sexton | Great Britain | 2:13.57 | q |
| 10 | H5 L1 | Frances Adcock | Australia | 2:13.78 | q |
| 11 | H4 L3 | Louise Ørnstedt | Denmark | 2:14.37 | q |
| 12 | H3 L7 | Hannah McLean | New Zealand | 2:14.38 | q |
| 13 | H5 L7 | Sanja Jovanović | Croatia | 2:14.75 | q |
| 14 | H4 L1 | Nicole Hetzer | Germany | 2:14.90 | q |
| 15 | H4 L8 | Anja Čarman | Slovenia | 2:14.91 | q |
| 16 | H4 L6 | Kirsty Coventry | Zimbabwe | 2:14.92 | q |
| 17 | H3 L1 | Melissa Corfe | South Africa | 2:15.25 | |
| 18 | H4 L2 | Elizabeth Warden | Canada | 2:15.64 | |
| 19 | H5 L2 | Shu Zhan | China | 2:16.43 | |
| 20 | H4 L7 | Zoe Tonks | Australia | 2:16.53 | |
| 21 | H5 L8 | Anna Gostomelsky | Israel | 2:17.60 | |
| 22 | H3 L2 | Xiujun Chen | China | 2:18.06 | |
| 23 | H2 L4 | Helen Norfolk | New Zealand | 2:18.88 | |
| 24 | H2 L5 | Sherry Tsai | Hong Kong | 2:19.27 | |
| 25 | H3 L8 | Derya Erke | Turkey | 2:19.39 | |
| 26 | H2 L3 | Inbal Levavi | Israel | 2:19.47 | |
| 27 | H2 L6 | Chonlathorn Vorathamrong | Thailand | 2:20.33 | |
| 28 | H1 L1 | Berit Aljand | Estonia | 2:22.58 | |
| 29 | H2 L8 | Valeria Silva | Peru | 2:22.91 | |
| 30 | H2 L7 | Edith Van der Schilden | Luxembourg | 2:23.94 | |
| 31 | H2 L2 | Marie-Lizza Toinette Danila | Philippines | 2:24.72 | |
| 32 | H2 L1 | Saida Iskandarova | Uzbekistan | 2:25.52 | |
| 33 | H1 L3 | Susan Anchia | Costa Rica | 2:28.49 | |
| 34 | H1 L5 | Khadija Ciss | Senegal | 2:29.60 | |
| 35 | H1 L2 | Ana Galindo | Honduras | 2:35.71 | |
| 36 | H1 L6 | Olga Gnedovskaya | Uzbekistan | 2:39.72 | |
| 37 | H1 L7 | Krystle Babao | Papua New Guinea | 2:44.93 | |
| - | - | Natalie Coughlin | United States | DNS | |
| - | - | Talita Ribeiro | Brazil | DNS | |