Tekada Now Makes 3 JPN Swimmers In Top 5 200 Flyers This Season

3rd JAPAN ADULT SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Saturday, November 7th & Sunday, November 8th
• Wakayama, Akibasan Park Prefectural Swimming Pool, Japan
• LCM (50m)
• Entries
• SwimSwam Preview
• Results

While a big chunk of Japan’s upper echelon of the swimming elite is taking part in season 2 of the International Swimming League (ISL) on the Tokyo Frog Kings, a segment of notable swimmers are about to get their own racing underway back at home.

The 3rd edition of the Japan Adult Swimming Championships is taking place this weekend in Wakayama, with the two-day affair allowing a domestic battle across both men’s and women’s events.

Once-banned Takeharu Fujimori was among the participants, with the 26-year-old taking on the men’s 400m IM. He cleared the field easily in a time of 4:16.25, setting a new meet record en route to getting to the wall over 5 seconds ahead of the next-fastest swimmer.

Fujimori is Japan’s 4th fastest performer all-time in this LCM 400 IM event, owning a lifetime best of 4:10.90 from the 2017 Japan Open. He’s only been back competing since August of this year due to his suspension.

Former 200m breaststroke world record holder Ippei Watanabe was also in the water today, racing his lesser event of the 100m sprint. Watanabe posted the 6th quickest mark of the morning with a 1:01.13 to make the final, where he settled for just 5th place in a time of 1:00.90.

Taking the 100m breast title was 26-year-old Yoshiki Yamanaka, who topped the podium in a mark of 1:00.43.

Watanabe will be taking on his specialty 200m breaststroke event tomorrow, where he’ll try to overtake his season-best of 2:09.89 from September.

200m fly Olympic silver medalist from Rio Masato Sakai was a no-show for his main event in the heats. Taking the 2fly in the final in his stead was Miki House swimmer Takumi Terada, who hit a meet record of 1:56.11.

That’s within striking distance of his own lifetime best of 1:55.99, a result he produced in Naples last year to reap bronze at the 2019 Summer Universiade (World University Games). Terada’s 1:56.11 here now ranks him as the world’s #2 performer this season, getting ahead of teammate Nao Horomura.

While the majority of the world is swimming short course meters thus far this 2020/21 season, Japan slides in to own 3 of the 5 top performer slots this season.

Additional Notes:

• Shogo Takeda was the men’s 1500m free winner, taking the top prize in a time of 15:09.95. That obliterated the old meet recorded of 15:31.90.
• The men’s 50m back saw Junya Hasegawa get it done in 25.18 for another meet record.
• Keita Sunama reaped gold in the men’s 200 back, posting a winning effort of 1:56.11. Splitting 57.35/58.76, that man wasn’t too far off his lifetime best of 1:55.54, a result which brought him a bronze medal finish at the 2018 Asian Games.
  • He now ranks #2 in the world only behind China’s Xu Jiayu, early in this long course season
  • 2020-2021 LCM Men 200 Back

    EvgenyRUS
    Rylov

    04/08
    1:53.23

    2	Ryan Murphy	USA	1:54.15	07/30
    3	Mitch Larkin	AUS	1:54.38	04/16
    4	Luke Greenbank	GBR	1:54.43	05/22
    5	Bryce Mefford	USA	1:54.79	06/18

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