64TH JAPAN SC SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Saturday, October 22nd & Sunday, October 23rd
- Tatsumi International Swimming Center, Tokyo, Japan
- SCM (25m)
- SC World Championships-qualifying meet
- Entries (in Japanese)
- Results
The 64th Japan Short Course Swimming Championships got off to a roaring start tonight from Tokyo, with multiple national and one World Record biting the dust before all was said and done.
Tomoru Honda, the reigning men’s 200m fly Olympic silver medalist, highlighted the evening, with a massive time of 1:46.85 to establish a new World Record in the short course version of that event.
We also saw national records fall to the tune of Reona Aoki in the women’s 100m breast, Katsuhiro Matsumoto in the men’s 200m free and Shogo Takeda in the men’s 1500m free. You can read more about those particular swims below.
Not to be lost were several other noteworthy swims which made some noise at the Tatsumi International Swimming Center by the likes of Yui Ohashi, Daiya Seto and Kosuke Matsui.
For Ohashi’s part, the 2-time Olympic gold medalist topped the women’s 100m IM field, clocking a winning effort of 59.05. Multi-world champion Seto got on the board with a gold in the men’s 400m IM, hitting a winning mark of 4:00.70.
In the men’s 50m freestyle, Matsui got it done for gold in a time of 22.16, beating out both domestic rivals Katsumi Nakamura and Shinri Shioura.
The women’s 200m free saw Chihiro Igarashi get to the wall first in 1:55.34, beating out Nagisa Ikemoto by just .18.
15-year-old Mio Narita topped the Ohashi-less women’s 400m IM field, producing a result of 4:29.70 as the only sub-4:30 swimmer in the field.
Although Yuya Hinomoto took the men’s 100m breaststroke with a winning time of 56.41, former 200m breast world record holder Ippei Watanabe was right behind him with a silver medal-worthy 56.88.
Watanabe is making a comeback of sorts after having missed out on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic team for his nation. He’s been racing off and on domestically but has told Asian media he is on a clear path to next year’s World Championships, as well as the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
As an American, I find this meet bizarre. It’s like they took all the swimmers who want to compete at short course worlds, and had them race in short course to qualify. What a novel selection process!!!