Kosuke Hagino Breaks Asian Record On Way To Gold Medal in 400 IM

2016 RIO OLYMPIC GAMES

• Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Swimming: August 6-13
• Olympic Aquatics Stadium, Barra Olympic Park, Rio de Janeiro
• Prelims – 9:00 a.m/12:00 p.m PST/EST (1:00 p.m local), Finals – 6:00 p.m/9:00 p.m PST/EST (10:00 p.m local)
• SwimSwam previews 
• Day 1 Schedule & Results
• Live Stream (NBC)

After cruising through the prelims in a third seeded 4:10.00, Japan’s Kosuke Hagino broke his own Asian and Japanese records in the men’s 400 IM to win the gold medal in a time of 4:06.05. That swim breaks Hagino’s previous record of 4:07.61 set at the 2013 Japanese Championships.

This is Hagino’s first win at either an Olympics or World Championships, as his biggest victories to date have come at the Pan Pacific Championships back in 2014. After winning two silvers at the 2013 Worlds, he was forced to miss the 2015 Championships due to injury.

Here’s a comparative look at Hagino’s splits tonight versus his splits from his previous record back in 2013:

• 2013 Japanese Championships: 56.32 (1:00.99) (1:11.53) (58.77) = 4:07.61
• 2016 Rio Olympic Games: 55.57 (1:01.16) (1:10.23) (58.09) = 4:06.05

Looking at the splits he was fairly even the whole way, making up small increments on all legs other than backstroke, where he was slightly slower.

American Chase Kalisz produced another big best time to win silver in 4:06.75, well under his morning best time of 4:08.12. His best time coming in was 4:09.22. Hagino’s Japanese teammate Daiya Seto, who is the two-time defending world champion, couldn’t put it together tonight and faltered to 3rd in 4:09.71.

This is a great start to the meet for Hagino, who will contest the 200 free and 200 IM later on in the meet.