In an edition of the World Championships already marked by several men’s ‘firsts’, such as the first time a Chinese man has won the 100m freestyle and the first medal for Argentina, a big achievement has also been attained on the women’s side.
Prior to yesterday’s podium-topping 200m butterfly swim by Natsumi Hoshi, no Japanese woman had ever earned a World Championships title. Now, with tonight’s Kanako Watanabe’s impressive victory in the women’s 200m breaststroke, the country secured its second title in two days.
The Japanese have a rich history of silver and bronze medals over the years at World Championships (24 in total for the women), but have never been able to get over the hump and clinch gold. Distance freestyler Ai Shibata was a Japanese gold medal hopeful at both the 2005 Montreal and 2007 Melbourne championships, but came away with one silver and three bronzes across the 400m freestyle, 800m freestyle and 1500m freestyle events over the two meets.
More recently, Aya Terakawa snatched the 50m backstroke silver in 2011 in Shanghai and came back for the bronze in 2013 in Barcelona, which ended her run at a possible gold medal for her country,
But it took Hoshi, an internationally experienced swimmer who has finished fourth in the 200 butterfly event in the past three world championships, to break through and earn her country’s first gold. The 24-year old’s time of 2:05.56 sits as the third-fastest time in the world this year, and sets Hoshi up nicely to be a medal threat in the event come Rio.
Building on Hoshi’s momentum, teammate Watanabe threw down a 2:21.15 in the women’s 200m breaststroke tonight to rack up Japan’s second gold of the competition. Watanabe failed to even qualify for the 2013 version of the world championships, yet swam away with the last year’s Pan Pacific Games crown in the event and owns the top time in the world of 2015. She won today’s race by over a second and, at just 18 years old, holds promise as a viable 200m breaststroke hardware winner in Rio as well.