Editorial content for the 2023 World Aquatics Championships is sponsored by FINIS, a longtime partner of Swimming World and leading innovator of suits, goggles and equipment. World Championships, Day 3 Prelims: Tomoru Honda Thrills Crowd with 200 Fly Top Time Japan’s 200 butterfliers gave the home crowd something to cheer Tuesday morning in Fukuoka, with Tomoru Honda setting the top time in prelims at the World Aquatics Championships. He will have a countryman in the finals with him, with Teppei Morimoto finishing 10th to make two Japan swimmers in the final 16 for Tuesday night’s semifinals at the Marine Messe Hall. Also into the semis are both Americans – Carson Foster in sixth in 1:55.36 and Thomas Heilman eighth in 1:55.59. In between was France’s newly minted 400 individual medley record-holder Leon Marchand in 1:55.46. The men’s 200 butterfly is one of those events where it’s hard not to focus on who isn’t in Fukuoka, when that person is a world record holder light years ahead of the field. But with Kristof Milak and his 1:50 absent, the winner is unlikely to get within two seconds of that mark. With only 38 qualifiers for Worlds, it gives the feeling of a staging camp for the runner-up place in Paris. Honda is first in line after winning the fifth and final prelims heat in 1:54.21. He’s been 1:52.70. Second was Spain’s Arbidel Gonzalez, who roared to win the first circle-seeded heat out of Lane 2 in 1:54.99 and continue an impressive start to the meet for that program. That time lops nearly a second and a half off the national record, downing the mark that had held since 2016 in the hands of Carlos Peralta (1:56.42). Krzysztof Chmielewski was .01 off his best time in winning the penultimate heat in 1:55.02. Chinese Taipei’s Kuan-Hung Wang was fourth in 1:55.17, followed by Italian Alberto Razzetti. Morimoto went 1:55.72 to get well within the time cut. Noe Ponti (12th in 1:55.85), Canada’s Ilya Kharun (13th in 1:55.93) and Matthew Temple of Australia (16th in 1:56.51) are also among the semifinalists.
