2019 JAPAN OPEN
- Thursday, May 30th – Sunday, June 1st
- Tokyo International Swimming Pool
- LCM
- World Championships Qualifying Meet
- Psych Sheets
- SwimSwam Meet Preview #1/Preview #2/Preview #3
- Day 1 Prelims Recap/Day 1 Finals Recap
- Day 2 Finals Recap/Day 3 Finals Recap
- Live Results
Whereas yesterday’s 200m fly battle between Japanese maestro Daiya Seto and Hungarian powerhouse Kristof Milak was indeed intense, tonight’s 100m fly showdown was a little less spectacular.
Singaporean Olympic champion in the event, Joseph Schooling, already won silver in the 50m fly here at the 2019 Japan Open in Tokyo and wound up scratching the 200m fly. The former Longhorn has said in the past that he’s essentially done with the event, so his scratch wasn’t really a surprise.
Tonight, Schooling beat out the field in the 100 fly sprint, landing on top of the podium in a time of 52.00. Although that mark beat out his 52.70 that won gold at the Singapore National Age Group Championships in March, it falls well outside his 51.04 mark that won gold at the 2018 Asian Games.
Given that Schooling has already qualified for the World Championships, this is most likely an ‘in-season’ meet for the 23-year-old Olympian.
Behind Schooling this evening was the home country’s Naoki Mizunuma, the man who won this event at April’s Japan Swim. There, Mizunuma clocked a big-time swim of 51.43 to land himself on the Gwangju roster for the men’s medley relay. For an individual swim, he’d need at least 51.47, so he was .04 shy.
Tonight, Mizunuma clocked 52.09 for silver, while Yuuya Tanaka earned bronze in 52.16. Of note, however, Mizunuma was under 52 seconds in this morning’s prelims, producing a tie of 51.77 to take the top seed.
Well off the podium tonight were Seto and Milak, who touched in respective times of 52.37 and 52.50. The men finished in 6th and 7th places in this event, the secondary fly race to their main focus of the 200m.
Seto opted out of the 100m fly at the Japan Swim in April, but holds a personal best of 51.94 from last month at the inaugural Sydney Open. As for Milak, he swam a mark of 52.00 at the Hungarian Nationals in March, preceded by his 51.50 from last year’s Youth Olympic Games.
Did they switch the times for Mizunuma? It says he had a big swim of 51.43 but needed a 51.47 for an individual swim…
52s? were they wearing drag suits?
Brownish, What happened to Milak?
As you know, too it was about 200 🙂
A good win but Schooling needs to drop more time soon.
obviously he will ….
But not enough. 50.8 at best this year, I’m guessing.
That’s still a medaling time
A year ago, there would have been 5000 comments about a Schooling swim and three different articles about the same swim. 52.0 isn’t terrible, but his days of 50-low to mid are over.
Ever since he turned pro, his timings aren’t as impressive as they used to be. This could be due to commitments to sponsorships which is taking a toll on him. Or it could just be that he’s under heavy training now. Guess we can only see what he has to offer at World Championships.
Michael Andrew is swimming consistent 51s. I’m not impressed by Schooling”s 52 at all. He’s probably rested and shaved.
LOL