BEIJING, China, February 4. JAPAN had a strong evening of preliminary action at the Good Luck Beijing China Open held at the National Aquatics Center (Water Cube) as the country claimed three of the six top seeds available for the final session of competition tomorrow morning.
Men's 200 fly prelims
Japan's Ryusuke Sakata led qualifying with a top time of 1:58.47, while New Zealand's Moss Burmester finished second in 1:59.34.
Poland's Pawel Korzeniowski placed third in 2:00.05, while Taipei's Chi-Chieh Hsu took fourth in 2:00.42 and Japan's Shota Takamoto touched fifth in 2:01.08.
Germany's Paul Biedermann (2:01.17), Mexico's Pablo Marmolejo Vargas (2:01.27) and Korea's Young Nam Kim (2:02.32) completed the top eight.
Women's 100 fly prelims
Japan's Yuka Kato will look to take a run at Japan's national record of 58.62 set by Junko Onishi in 2004 after clocking a 58.99 to pace the preliminary round in this meet. China's Xu Yanwei touched second in 59.60, while Slovakia's Martina Moravcova completed the sub-1:00 qualifiers with a third-place 59.72.
Other championship finalists include Japan's Natsumi Hoshi (1:00.29), Germany's Annika Mehlhorn (1:00.49), Germany's Franziska Hentke (1:01.27), Poland's Otylia Jedrzejczak (1:01.33) and Portugal's Sara Oliveira (1:01.37).
Men's 200 back prelims
Germany's Helge Meeuw dominated qualifying by more than a second with a top-seed time of 2:00.17, while Koreans Min Sung (2:01.48) and Ji Heun Kim (2:02.47) completed the top three.
Kazakhstan's Oleg Rabota finished fourth in 2:03.75, while Portugal's Pedro Oliveira (2:04.32), China's Sun Xiaolei (2:05.10), Mexico's Miguel Robles (2:05.66) and China's Zhang Yu (2:07.08) will also vie for the title in the morning.
Women's 100 back prelims
China's Liao Yali posted the fastest time of both prelim heats with a 1:02.64, while Germany's Antje Buschschulte won the second heat with a 1:02.82.
Hungary's Nikolett Szepesi, this morning's 200 back winner, qualified third in 1:03.43, while China's Chen Yanyan took fourth in 1:03.70.
Korea's Nam Eun Lee (1:05.41) and Yoo Jin Jung (1:05.63) finished fifth and sixth, respectively, while Hong Kong's Claudia Lau (1:06.15) and Kazakhstan's Anastassiya Prilepa (1:06.49) comprised the rest of the top eight.
Men's 400 IM prelims
Japan's Hidemasa Sano gave his country another top seed, this time with a first-place time of 4:20.96, while Poland's Mateusz Matczak claimed second in 4:22.51.
Hungary's Laszlo Cseh (4:26.39), China's He Xiaofeng (4:29.42) and Korea's Beom Ho Park (4:29.44) touched third through fifth, while Portugal's Carlos Almeida (4:30.81), Korea's Joon Mo Bae (4:32.96) and Hungary's Daniel Gyurta (4:33.95) picked up the rest of the transfer spots to the championship heat.
Click here to view event results PDF file.