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Yasuhiro Koseki, Kosuke Hagino in fine form as Japan S/C Nationals Conclude
Yasuhiro Koseki and Kosuke Hagino, two of Japan’s great hopes for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, sped to the helm of the season World Rankings with dominant efforts on the second and concluding day of Japanese short-course Championships in Tokyo.
Japanese 200m breaststroke finals always shake the rankings tree. The national record of 2:01.30 – which stands to … Seto, much to the chagrin of specialists – survived, but Koseki raced into the all-time top 10 at No9 with a 2:01.78 (27.62, 58.74, 1:30.22) victory.
Two others raced inside the ISL winning time in Budapest, too: Kazuki Kohinata and former world long-course record holder Ippei Watanabe matched each other in 2:04.16 after a stroke-for-stroke fight that Watanabe led by a fraction all the way until the end wall. There were two other 2:05s, too, the top 5 in a domestic race all inside the scope of international line-ups at the League and all the more so on the struggling World Cup tour.
A day after his domestic friend and rival Daiya Seto rattled the 400m medley world record, Hagino took the 200m medley crown in 1:52.89 (24.35, 51.98, 1:24.87). Closest to him were Ippei Miyamoto, 1:55.79, and Yuki Ikari, on 1:55.82.
The race marked the first best effort on a career list for Hagino tipped by a 1:51.27 back in 2014. Set owns the Japanese record at 1:51.09, one of three efforts inside 1:52 and 14 efforts inside 1:53.
Yui Ohashi gave her own national record a scare with a 2:05.84 victory over 200m medley. The time is second-fastest in the world so far this short-course season behind Melanie Margalis and her American record 2:04.18 at the inaugural round of the ISL.
Ohashi’s national record has stood at 2:05.29 since the Tokyo round of the World Cup last year. Today, she swam her career second-best through splits of 27.59, 59.19 and 1:35.82. The silver went to Sakiko Shimizu on
2:08.50.
There was a brace of personal-best victories for Rio Shirai as the meet came to a close: the 20-year-old took the 100m free in 52.87 and the 100m back in 56.00.
Reona Aoki claimed both breaststroke titles in the day, first with a national record and maiden sub-30sec effort in the 50m on 29.97 before taking the 200m in 2:19.24.
There were few events at the two-day meet in Tokyo that did not shuffle the world rankings. Other national titles on Day 2 included:
- Men’s 400m Freestyle: Katsuo Matsumoto – 3:42.23
- Women’s 400m Freestyle – Chihiro Igarashi – 4:01.92
- Men’s 100m Backstroke: Takahiro Yamazaki 51.21
Well Done, you’re the ture athletes, please defeat all the doped red communists cheaters in 2020 Olympics.＃sunyang