Yasuhiro Koseki Swims Third Fastest 100 Breast Of Summer For New Games Record

Photo Courtesy: Delly Carr

Japan’s Yasuhiro Koseki won his second gold medal of the meet, this time taking out the 100 breaststroke games record after he earlier won the 200 breast final. Koseki swam a 58.86 to break the Games Record that was a 59.92 by Dmitriy Balandin coming into the meet. Balandin was the defending champion from 2014 and he ended up winning the bronze medal at 59.39, just behind China’s Yan Zibei (59.31).

Koseki was just the third man to break 58 seconds at a major meet this summer as he will settle for the virtual bronze medal behind the British duo of Adam Peaty and James Wilby.

Yan and Balandin also placed in the virtual world championship final with their times here. This comes after Balandin announced earlier in the week he was thinking about retiring after the Asian Games were done. Balandin cited injuries for keeping him out of the 200 breast final in which he was the defending Asian Games champion and reigning Olympic champion. Balandin is 23.

Japan’s Ippei Watanabe (1:00.15), China’s Qin Haiyang (1:00.24), Korea’s Moon Jaekwon (1:01.07), Uzbekistan’s Vladislav Mustafin (1:01.49) and Singapore’s Chien Khoo (1:01.74) also placed in the final.

Koseki also won Japan’s eleventh gold medal in the 100 breast at the Asian Games. He joins the likes of Masaru Ota (1958), Kenji Ishikawa (1962, 1966), Nobutaka Taguchi (1970, 1974), Shigehiro Takahashi (1978), Akira Hayashi (1994), Kosuke Kitajima (2002, 2006) and Ryo Tateishi (2010) as Japanese winners in this event.

Yashurio Koseki, JPN, 58.86, Games Record
Yan Zibei, CHN, 59.31
Dmitriy Balandin, KAZ, 59.39
Ippei Watanabe, JPN, 1:00.15
Qin Haiyang, CHN, 1:00.24
Moon Jaekwon, KOR, 1:01.07
Vladislav Mustafin, UZB, 1:01.49
Chien Khoo, SGP, 1:01.74

2018 Virtual World Championships

Adam Peaty, GBR, 57.10, Europeans
James Wilby, GBR, 58.64, Europeans
Yashurio Koseki, JPN, 58.86, Asian Games
Anton Chupkov, RUS, 59.06, Europeans
Jake Packard, AUS, 59.20, Pan Pacs
Kirill Prigoda, RUS, 59.20, Europeans
Yan Zibei, CHN, 59.31, Asian Games
Dmitriy Balandin, KAZ, 59.39, Asian Games

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