Daniel Gyurta of Hungary has won just about everything in the 200 breaststroke over the last three years, including two World Championships and an Olympic gold medal, but he only held the World Record in the 200 breaststroke for a very short time.
That’s because on Saturday evening (Japan time) at the Japanese National Sports Festival, 18-year old Akihiro Yamaguchi broke his World Record with a 2:07.01, just missing the mythical 2:07-barrier.
Gyurta’s old record had stood at 2:07.28 from London. Here are the comparative splits:
| Yamaguchi | 29.16 | 32.56 | 33.06 | 32.23 | 2:07.01 |
| Gyurta | 29.19 | 32.37 | 32.6 | 33.12 | 2:07.26 |
As great of a closer as Gyurta is in this event, Yamaguchi seems to be even better – his final 50 was almost a full second faster than when Gyurta last broke the record.
Since Yamaguchi first broke out at Japan’s High School Championships a few weeks ago, he has been racing over-and-over again, all with the expectation of getting this record. He has come up just short, but the result is that he now has 3 of the top 6 times in the world this year.
Highlighting Japan’s history in this event, Yamaguchi is now the 6th different Japanese swimmer to hold the World Record in this event since they started being tracked in 1908. That’s more times than any other country aside from the United States (8).
Incidentally, this also took down the Japanese Record of Kosuke Kitajima in 2:07.51.
Full meet results available here (in Japanese): http://swim.seiko.co.jp/2012/S70703/day0.html
Saw him at Pan Pacs in the 200. Looked more natural in 200, and big in the water – fantastic swimmer.
BOBOGIGI speaks about swimming industry . weird mind bro …… anyway , he forgot to mention Usa is the backstroke and butterfly specialist . hheheh funny french
Backstroke yes. Also 200 free, IM. Fly… not so much the past few years.
A friend of mine who saw him swim at the Jr. Pan Pacs said that he has extremely good use of his core, both in terms of floatation and being able to assist him in the thrust downwards. Not sure if that amounts to half emulating a dolphin kick movement without the feet but whatever it is, seems to be legal and working.
He trains with Norimasa Hirai, who is the coach that brought Kitajima to prominence, and Kosuke Hagino will be joining his training group in the spring. Japan is set up well for the future.
What with all of these sudden improvements in breastroke events, they should re-legalize supersuits for the 100m and 200m breastroke, as they don’t seem to have any noticeable effect on performance in those events.
you have to wonder if these improvements are brought by improved technique or those unseen dolphin kicks
They were doing extra dolphin kicks at least as far back as ’09. Just watch any of Eric Shanteau’s races from Rome.
I dont have any doubt abou that.The improvement in dolphin kicks helps to increase speed in all strokes.If you see 50 free final, Manoudou made five underwater kicks(against cullen and cielo only 4) putting him away of the field when he made the breakout.
how in earth do you maintain a taper for that long?
He’s Japanese…. how many times was Irie under 1:55 last year? 6?
I can’t wait to see LeClos beat Phelp’s 200m fly record next year.
Love his cocky attitude. He called 2:07 in the spring and he’s delivered four times.