World University Games Champion Yuki Ikari Posts 800 Free Japanese Record

WAKAYAMA PREFECTURAL SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS

• January 15th
• Akibasan Park Prefectural Swimming Pool, Wakayama City, Japan
• SCM (25m)
• Full
• Results Pending

The dawn of a new year brings a host of prefectural-level meets throughout Japan, with the competitions akin to regional-type championships in the United States.

At the Wakayama Prefectural Short Course Championships today, 21-year-old Yuki Ikari fired off a new Japanese national record en route to topping the men’s 800m freestyle event.

Coming into the wall in a lifetime best of 7:37.83, Ikari hacked well over a second off of the previous national standard. The former record stood at the 7:39.36 Shogo Takeda put on the books at the 2020 Japanese Short Course Championships.

For Ikari, the man’s previous career-quickest rested at the 7:56.23 he posted at that same meet, meaning the swimmer obliterated that former mark by nearly 20 seconds.

Worldwide, Ikari’s 7:37.83 checks him in just outside of the top 30 performers ever in the event.

However, specific to Asia, he now sits as the #2 swimmer of all-time on that continent, with only Korea’s Park Tae Hwan having been faster at 7:37.01. Park hit that result as part of his ultimately gold medal-winning 1500m free performance at the 2016 FINA Short Course World Championships in 14:15.51.

Ikari is the reigning World University Games (Summer Universiade) gold medalist in the men’s 400m IM from the 2019 edition of the competition in Naples, Italy.

Splits for Ikari’s new record:

54.25
1.51.54（57.29）
2.48.85（57.31）
3.46.72（57.87）
4.44.86（58.14）
5.42.98（58.12）
6.41.41（58.43）
7.37.83（56.42）