Japanese Men Snag Asian Record In 400 Free Relay

2018 PAN PACIFIC CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Thursday, August 9 – Tuesday, August 14, 2018
• Tokyo Tatsumi International Swimming Center, Tokyo, Japan
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The Japanese quartet of Katsumi Nakamura, Shinri Shioura, Katsuhiro Matsumoto and Juran Mizohata combined for a new Asian Record in the men’s 400 free relay on day 3 of the Pan Pacs in Tokyo, registering a time of 3:12.54.

Japan’s performance breaks China’s previous mark of 3:13.47, set at the 2014 Asian Games, and also removes their 3:13.65 National Record off the books.

In a very tight four-way battle, the Japanese men held 2nd place through the 2nd and 3rd exchanges with quick splits from Shioura (48.19) and Matsumoto (47.61) on the middle two legs, but ultimately fell to 4th place at the final wall.

However, after losing out to Australia for the bronze by just .01, the American team was disqualified for swimming out of order after initially winning gold. This bumped Brazil up to gold, Australia to silver, and Japan went from 4th to bronze.

Below, check out a split comparison between the previous Asian Record, the previous Japanese Record, and the new standard for both:

Comparing Japan’s swim with their performance in Budapest last summer, Nakamura and Shioura had near identical splits (and were actually dead even with their record pace at the 200 with Nakamura .08 faster than last year and Shioura .08 slower), but Matsumoto was a full seven-tenths faster which made a big difference. Mizohata was also four-tenths better on the anchor than Junya Koga was last year.

Compared to China’s old Asian Record, Japan was significantly faster through the 300, with Ning Zetao‘s 47.08 anchor leg the only standout split.