Day four of the Japanese Nationals continued with multiple women earning themselves tickets to Rio.<\/p>\n
The men’s 100-meter free semi-finals kicked off the final session of day four with the top two athletes posting times underneath the 49-second mark.\u00a0Katsumi Nakamura\u00a0<\/strong>topped the competition with a time of 48.53, finishing a shy .12 seconds off his own japanese National Record of 48.41.<\/p>\n Shinri Shioura<\/strong>, who entered semi’s as the second-place seed, maintained his spot with a time of 48.73, while\u00a0Kenji Kobase\u00a0<\/strong>grabbed third with a 49.31. It’s important to note that this is the second event of the meet so far where the Japanese Olympic qualifying standard (48.16) is faster than the Japanese National Record (48.41).<\/p>\n Miki Uchida<\/strong> continued to improve upon her top spot in the women’s 100-meter free with a 54.20 in the semi-finals. Uchida’s time moves her to fifteenth in the world rankings for 2016.<\/p>\n Rikako Ikee<\/strong>, the National Record holder in this event, moved up from sixth to second stopping the clock at 54.50. Earlier this season Ikee turned in a 53.99 which sits her at eleventh in the world rankings for 2016.\u00a0Yayoi Matsumoto<\/strong> was third with a time of 54.72.<\/p>\n The men’s 200-meter fly continued to be a swift event with\u00a0Daiya Seto<\/strong>, the 400-meter IM reigning World Champion, clocking a 1:55.00 to move up to first in semi’s. Seto’s time sits under the Japanese Olympic Standard of 1:55.39 but Seto will need to replicate that performance in finals to swim the event in Rio.<\/p>\n Masato Sakai<\/strong>, the leader in the 200 fly after prelims, added ever-so-slightly to his prelims time of 1:55.37, stopping the clock at 1:55.40. Sakai, who owns the top time in the world rankings, will need to turn up the heat during tomorrow’s finals to slide under the Olympic standard and earn an Olympic berth.<\/p>\n Takeshi Matsuda<\/strong>, the 2012 Olympic bronze medalist in the 200 fly and National Record holder in the event, moved to fourth in the semi’s with a time of 1:57.30.<\/p>\n Ippei Watanabe<\/strong>, who posted a 2:08.83 in prelims of the men’s 200-meter breaststroke, continued to sit under the Japanese Olympic qualifying standard with a time of 2:09.46 in semi-finals.\u00a0Yasuhiro Koseki<\/strong> posted the second fastest time in the event with a time of 2:09.98, while\u00a0Kosuke Kitajima<\/strong> grabbed third with a 2:10.16.<\/p>\n None of the athletes in the women’s 100-meter backstroke finals qualified for Rio.\u00a0Natsumi Sakai<\/strong> won gold with a 1:00.12 but fell short of the Japanese Olympic standard of 59.85.\u00a0Miyuki Takemura<\/strong> (1:00.18) and\u00a0Emi Mornuki<\/strong> (1:00.37) finished second and third respectively.<\/p>\n Natsumi Hoshi<\/strong>, the Japanese National record holder in the women’s 200-meter fly, dashed to gold with a time of 2:06.32. Hoshi’s time rockets her to the top of the world rankings, inching ahead of Spain’s\u00a0Mireia\u00a0<\/strong>Belmonte’s\u00a0<\/b>2:06.34 and earned her a ticket to Rio. Joining her in Rio is\u00a0Suzuka Hasegawa<\/strong> who not only finished second in the event, but finished under the qualifying time with a 2:06.92.<\/p>\n The women’s 200-meter IM saw a major shake-up as\u00a0Miho Teramura\u00a0<\/strong>blasted past her semi-finals time of 2:!2.02 to win gold and a ticket to Rio with a 2:09.87. Teramura’s time moves her up to second in the world rankings behind\u00a0Katinka Hosszu<\/strong> (2:07.69).<\/p>\n Runa Imai<\/strong> and\u00a0Kanako Watanabe\u00a0<\/strong>dueled for second in Teramura’s wake, both finishing under the Japanese Olympic standard of 2:11.03. Imai edged Watanabe to finish second with a 2:10.76 over Watanabe’s 2:10.93, earning herself a ticket to Rio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Day four of the Japanese Nationals continued with multiple women earning themselves tickets to Rio. The men’s 100-meter free semi-finals kicked off the final session of day four with the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":149636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[57366],"class_list":["post-193632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-world","tag-2016-japanese-nationals"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n