Pair of Asian Records, Handful of Japanese Marks Fall on Day One of Japanese Short Course Champs

Kosuke Hagino

TATSUMI, Japan, February 15. AFTER the first day of the two-day Japanese Short Course Championships, a pair of Asian records went into the books, while a handful of other Japanese marks wound up being revised.

Kosuke Hagino continued his strong swimming post-Barcelona, where he put together one of the most ambitious event schedules of any in attendance at the World Championships. First, he lowered the national record in the men’s 200 free with a 1:42.51. That performance wiped out the 1:43.83 set by Syunsuke Kuzuhara in 2012 at this meet.

Hagino when won the men’s 400-meter IM with a time of 3:58.28, which was well off what he had been gunning for. Prior to the meet, he had made it public that he was targeting Ryan Lochte’s world record of 3:55.50. He fell well off the mark.

Kanako Watanabe raced her way to a national record in the women’s 100-meter IM with a 59.28. That effort clipped her own mark of 59.34 set a year ago in Tokyo. Masaki Kaneko hit the wall in 1:48.84 in the men’s 200-meter backstroke, beating Yuki Shirai (1:48.98) to the punch as both surpassed the previous Japanese record of 1:49.69 set by Shirai at the 2012 Tokyo World Cup. That had also served as the Asian record as well.

Meanwhile, Miki Uchida popped a 24.31 in the women’s 50-meter freestyle to down a Japanese mark of her own. That swim clipped the 24.69 Uchida set during semifinals of the 2012 World Championships in Istanbul.

In the final national-record setting performance of the day, Yasuhiro Koseki threw down a 56.34 in the men’s 100-meter breaststroke. That swim cleared Ryo Tateishi’s record of 57.20 set in 2012, which also stood as the Asian record.

Other winners:

Sayaka Akase: Women’s 50 Back (26.99), 200 Back (2:02.38)
Hiromasa Fujimori: Men’s 100 IM (52.66)
Ayatsugu Hirai: Men’s 1500 Free (14:42.97)
Natsumi Hoshi: Women’s 200 Fly (2:04.82)
Rino Hosoda: Women’s 50 fly (26.07)
Chihiro Igarashi: Women’s 200 free (1:55.86)
Kohei Kawamoto: Men’s 50 Fly (22.84)
Takeshi Kawamoto: Men’s 50 Back (23.96)
Yuuna Kikuchi: Women’s 800 Free (8:26.55)
Mio Motegi: Women’s 100 Breast (1:05.22)
Miyu Otsuka: Women’s 400 IM (4:28.26)
Daiya Seto: Men’s 200 Fly (1:50.93)
Shinri Shioura: Men’s 50 Free (21.45)

Special thanks to Hideki Mochizuki for contributing to this report. 

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