On the heels of the Japanese Swimming Federation (JASF) having revealed its roster for the 2022 FINA World Aquatic Championships in Budapest Hungary, the organization has also now published its lineup for the Asian Games.
Of note, for the Asian Games headed to Hangzhou, China in September, the 17-strong Japanese lineup is nearly identical to that for Budapest, save one exception in the women’s 400m IM.
Olympic champion Yui Ohashi will represent Japan both in Budapest and Hangzhou in the event, but her teammate will differ between Ageha Tanigawa in the former and Mio Narita in the latter.
15-year-old Mio Narita clocked a temporary World Junior Record in the women’s 400m IM behind Tanigawa at the Japanese Selection meet. With Ohashi already having qualified for Budapest by way of her Olympic gold, that meant Tanigawa snagged roster spot #2.
However, Narita has a chance to make her mark now on the roster for the Asian Games.
With the roster being primarily the same, that means, just as there are no male or female freestyle sprinters who made the grade for Budapest, there are none headed to Hangzhou either.
At the last edition of the Asian Games in 2018, the nation of Japan topped the overall swimming medal table, coming away with a monster 52 medals including 19 gold.
Multi-medalists for Japan in individual events included Yasuhiro Koseki sweeping the men’s breaststroke events, Daiya Seto topping the men’s 200 fly and 400m IM podium and Satomi Suzuki doubling up on the women’s 50m and 100m breast.
Running away with the first-ever female MVP award for an Asian Games, Rikako Ikee topped the podium with 4 individual golds across the women’s 50m/100m free and 50m/100m fly. It was just the following February in 2019 that the Olympian made her leukemia diagnosis public, a condition that kept her out of competition until late 2020.
Japanese Roster for the 2022 Asian Games
Katsuhiro Matsumoto
Ryosuke Irie
Ryuya Mura
Yu Hanaguruma
Naoki Mizunuma
Tomoru Honda
Takumi Terada
Reona Aoki
Hayashi Kina
Chiho Mizuguchi
Rika Omoto
Mio Narita
Come on, JASF, you can’t even add Ikee to the Asian Games roster??