2018 KONAMI OPEN
- Saturday, February 17th & Sunday, February 18th
- Tatsumi International Swimming Center
- Prelims at 9am local (7pm previous night EST)/Finals at 6pm local (4am EST)
- LCM
- Meet Site
- SwimSwam Meet Preview
- Start Lists/Results
We reported on 17-year-old Rikako Ikee‘s new 200m freestyle 1:55.04 national record rendered at the 2018 Konami Open, but there were several other notable swims that took place in Tokyo tonight.
23-year-old Katsumi Nakamura continued his trail of fire, producing another sub-22 second 50m freestyle to stand atop the podium on day 1. He already threw down a super quick 21.87 earlier this month at the Kirara Cup to become the fastest Japanese man ever ni the event, and he wasn’t too far off that mark here in Tokyo. 21.91 is what Nakamura registered for first place to represent the only man of the field to delve into 21-second territory.
Right behind, however, was Nakamura’s domestic rival and former national record holder Shinri Shioura, who also garnered a swift effort of 22.02, his fastest this season. While Nakamura’s NR already positioned him as 2nd in the world this season, Shioura’s time tonight bumps him up to 4th in the world. That move now makes 4 out of the top 5 50m freestylers from Asia.
2017-2018 LCM MEN 50 FREE
PROUD
21.11
| 2 | Bruno FRATUS | BRA | 21.35 | 04/21 |
| 3 | Andrea VERGANI | ITA | 21.37 | 08/08 |
| 4 | Kristian GKOLOMEEV | GRE | 21.44 | 08/09 |
| 4 | Vladimir MOROZOV | RUS | 21.44 | 08/08 |
Also turning heads tonight was Yui Ohashi, Japan’s World Championships silver medalist in the 200m IM. Tonight in the longer 400m edition, the 22-year-old fired off the 3rd fastest time of her career, stopping the clock at 4:34.99. That sits only behind her career fastest of 4:34.40 and 4:34.50, the latter of which garnered her 4th place in Budapest last year.
The men’s 400m IM saw dominant mainstay and soon-to-be new dad Daiya Seto take the win in a comfortable time of 4:15.75. His national teammate and reigning Olympic champion, Kosuke Hagino, did not swim today.
Ippei Miyamoto, the Junior Pan Pacific Championships gold medalist from 2016, reigned supreme in the 200m breaststroke tonight, rocking a new personal best mark of 2:10.51. That moves Miyamoto among the top 10 in the world in the event and makes him another weapon in Japan’s arsenal along with world record holder Ippei Watanabe.
Masaki Kaneko was another swimmer who notched a new personal best as he took the men’s 100m backstroke in 53.94. Splitting 26.57/27.37, Kaneko produced the first 53-point time of his career. He was able to hold off national record holder Junya Koga who touched in 54.57 for 2nd.