2018 JAPAN SWIM (JAPANESE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS)
- Tuesday, April 3rd – Sunday, April 8th
- Tatsumi International Swim Centre, Tokyo, Japan
- LCM
- Selection meet for Asian Games, Pan Pacific Championships, Jr. Pan Pacific Championships & Youth Olympics
- Meet Site
- SwimSwam Preview
- Start Lists
- Live Results
- Day 1 Prelims
As is typically the trend when 17-year-old Rikako Ikee enters the water, the 2016 Olympian cranked out a new Japanese national record tonight in Tokyo. This time it was in her specialty event, the women’s 100m butterfly, where Ikee fired off an impressive time of 56.58 to take the top seed in tonight’s semi-final on day 1 of the 2018 Japan Swim.
After a morning outing that was also very quick, where the teen clocked 57.14 to represent the only swimmer of the prelims field to dip under 59 seconds, Ikee blasted a opening 50 of 26.44 and closed in 30.14 to produce the fastest time ever by a Japanese woman. Reminder – Ikee is only 17 years of age. Her previous personal best, and old NR stood at the 56.86 she registered in Rio back in 2016.
2017-2018 LCM WOMEN 100 FLY
IKEE
56.08
| 2 | Sarah SJOESTROEM | SWE | 56.13 | 08/04 |
| 3 | Kelsi DAHLIA | USA | 56.44 | 08/11 |
| 4 | Emma McKEON | AUS | 56.54 | 08/11 |
| 5 | Madeline GROVES | AUS | 57.19 | 04/06 |
With her incredible race tonight, Ikee actually rockets ahead of Swedish world record holder Sarah Sjostrom in the world rankings to sit as the queen in the #1 spot, for now. Among the top performers ever, Ikee frog hopped such legends as Inge de Bruin and Alicia Coutts to now place 9th in history.
The women’s 100m fly final at the Japan Swim takes place tomorrow, so we may even see Ikee lower this mark even further.
Well,Ikee will be a huge challenge for China at the Asian games 2018.Lu Ying may not compete because she is ready to get pregnant.
56.38 NR in the final.
Such a huge compliment to Sjostrom that a lady coming within a second of her WR is classed as competition. I agree with those naming Ikee, Oleksiak and McKeon as ‘the ones’ who may develop into the real competition for Sjostrom heading towards Tokyo.
When people talk here about Sarah Sjostrom or Katie Ledecky they assume that these swimmers do not swim close to their personal bests on regular basis because they are in fact world records. When they are talking about challenger who just set new personal best then there is a feeling in the air that such a result will be easily repeated or improved. That creates an illusion of competition. Some use arguments of dynamic of improvements assuming implicitly for some unclear reason that Sarah or Katie will not improve any more but the challenger will. Don’t see why personal bests of different swimmers have to be treated differently.
Great, SS got a new true rival after Vollmer, Tokyo bring it on!
Ikees time is not even as fast as the times Sarah Sjöström has done when she has been untapered.
Wow she must be really slow then Liam
Kelsi Worrell will get some competition at Pan Pacs – thats for sure
Can she gun tomorrow for the Asian Record? 56 low by Zige.. Also curious now to see what Oleksiak will do..
Worrel will have her hands full with Mckeon Ikee and Oleksiak at Pan pac.. will be a very good race to see if someone else than Sjostrom can go sub-56 there..
Finally some competition for Sarah Sjöström ?
There’s still a long way to go to challenge Sjostrom.
With the progress she had from last year to this year, I think she will challenge her in 2019, if not definately in Tokyo 2020
Maybe she will, but for some reasons I’m not as positive as you about her future:
1) She’s still more than a second behind Sjostrom.
2) Asian swimmers, especially female swimmers, always peak early.
3) Penny Oleksiak, of the same age with her, went 56.46 two years ago. She has to prove she is superior to Oleksiak first.
She is probably in better form than Oleksiak now. 1:55.04 in 200 free about month ago and this good time in fly. By far her progress is accelerating not slowing down.
Regarding point number 2, tell that to Satomi Suzuki (age 27), or Rie Kaneto (gold at 28), or Ai Shibata, Mai Nakamura, Noriko Inada, Tomoko Hagiwara, Suzu Chiba, Yui Ohashi, Aya Terakawa…..
To be fair, I don’t think we can put Mai Nakamura, Noriko Inada, Tomoko Hagiwara or Suzu Chiba on that list – Yes, they all swam best times later in their careers, but how much of that was down to the progression of the science/nutrition behind sport? If you look at their international medal records, Hagiwara won her last international medal in 2002 (aged 22), Inada won her last in 2002 (aged 24), but her golden years were 1995-1999, Suzu Chiba won her final international medal in 1995, before she left her teens and Mai Nakamura won her final in 2001, aged 22.
The point is that they all swam best times later in their career, and that statements like “Asian swimmers, especially female swimmers, always peak early” are blatantly incorrect. In the case of Suzu Chiba, she was on track to win medals in the 2000 Olympics and got screwed out of selection. She broke the National 200 free record in 1999 in a time that ranked her 2nd in the world for the year. At the Olympic Trials, she made the qualifying standard they set, but they left her home because (the excuse was) that they felt she couldn’t win a medal, even though they took a male breaststroker whose time ranked him 18th in the world. The reality was that… Read more »
getting there – she has been up & coming for some time now. the next few years ought to be most interesting in this event
Forget that, I think she is the next Sjostrom.