Shoma Sato Goes Fifth All-Time With 2:07.02 In 200 Breaststroke At Japan Student Championships

Shoma Sato - Photo Courtesy: FINA / Budapest 2019 World Junior Championships

Shoma Sato became the fifth-fastest man in history over 200m breaststroke with a time of 2:07.02 on the final day of the Japan Student Swimming Championships.

It rocketed the teenager from fifth to third in the all-time Japanese rankings behind former world-record holders Ippei Watanabe with a best of 2:06.67 and Akihiro Yamaguchi who swam 2:07.01 in 2012.

World-record holder Anton Chupkov and Australian Matt Wilson – who had equalled Watanabe’s 2017 mark in the semis at the 2019 World Championships before the Russian set a new threshold of 2:06.12 en-route to a successful title defence – are the only other men to have gone faster than Sato.

Photo Courtesy: FINA / Budapest 2019

Sato – who won silver at last year’s World Junior Championships behind Josh Matheny of the USA – started the meet with a best of 2:07.58 from the Kosuke Kitajima Cup in January.

He had already done a PB of 59.55 over 100m and on Sunday was 0.47 under world-record pace at the 150 mark which puts into sharp focus Chupkov’s final-50 blast of 31.89 in Gwangju with Sato coming home in 33.26.

Splits:

28.91/1:01.14/1:33.76/2:07.02 Shoma Sato, October 2020

29.73/1:02.22/1:34.23/2:06.12 Anton Chupkov, July 2019

Link to results

Sato’s thunderous performance came hours after Kirill Prigoda had gone 2:07.58, leaving Chupkov in his slipstream, at the Russian Swimming Cup.

Double Gold And A Meet Mark For Shirai

Natsumi Sakai: Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Rio Shirai won the women’s 100 free in 54.76 before leading off the Toyo University 4×200 squad in 1:58.23 as they sliced 0.13 off the previous meet record in 8:01.15.

Tomoru Honda – who had won the 200 fly in 1:55.76 on the opening day – added the 400IM crown in 4:13.31.

Mai Fukasawa won the women’s 200m breaststroke in 2:25.75 and Juran Mizohata took the men’s 100 free in 49.12 as the top six all came in under 50 seconds.

Asian Games champion Natsumi Sakai won the women’s 100 back in 1:00.27 with Riku Matsuyama taking the men’s in 54.66.

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