Day six of the Japanese Nationals continued with the men and women showing their sprinting abilities.<\/p>\n
Junya Koga<\/strong> of Club Wolverine delivered the top time in prelims of the men’s 50-meter freestyle, stopping the clock at a 22.53. That stands as Koga’s fastest time this season after posting a time of 22.68 at the Austin stop of the Arena Pro Series.<\/p>\n Shinri Shioura<\/strong>, winner of the 50 free title last year and Japense National Record holder, grabbed a close second with a time of 22.56. Currently Shioura sits at 17th in the world rankings with a time of 21.88 which he set at the Perth Aquatic Super Series earlier in the year.\u00a0Kenji Kobase<\/strong> rounded out the top three with a 22.70.<\/p>\n The women’s 50-meter free was led by\u00a0Syoko Tanabe<\/strong> and her time of 25.68. Tanabe’s time is an improvement upon where she was at Nationals in 2015 where she finished eighth overall with a 26.02.<\/p>\n Rikako Ikee<\/strong>, the silver medalist in the 100 free, posted the second fastest time of the morning at a 25.76, just ahead of\u00a0Miki Uchida<\/strong>, the gold medalist in the 100 free, and her time of 25.91. The qualifiers will all need to turn up the heat to dip below the 25-second mark and reach the Japanese Olympic qualifying standard of 24.59.<\/p>\n The men’s 100-meter fly was a tightly packed field with the top three qualifiers finishing within .33 seconds of one another. At the top of the leaderboard was\u00a0Takurou Fujii\u00a0<\/strong>who delivered a time of 52.49.\u00a0Grabbing second in prelims was\u00a0Takaya Yasue<\/strong> who stopped the clock at a 52.81.\u00a0Kouhei Kawamoto<\/strong> rounded out the top three with a 52.82.<\/p>\n After a sub-par women’s 100-meter back showing it is possible that we may not see any of the athletes near the Japanese Olympic qualifying standard in the 200-meter back. With the standard sitting at a 2:08.76 the women will need to turn on the heat to break through the 2:10-mark.\u00a0Yuka Kawayoke<\/strong> posted the top time in prelims with a 2:10.97 just ahead of 20-year old\u00a0Mayuko Gotou’s\u00a0<\/strong>2:11.23.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Day six of the Japanese Nationals continued with the men and women showing their sprinting abilities. Junya Koga of Club Wolverine delivered the top time in prelims of the men’s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":55642,"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-194288","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