The 2019 swim year is just getting underway, which means stars across the globe are making their first splashes, readying for this year’s huge meets. The FINA World Championships, Pan American Games, World University Games and Short Course European Championships are just several of the big-ticket competitions on the horizon as we head to Tokyo 2020.
Two Japanese powerhouse athletes wasted no time getting some in-season racing under their belts, as both newly-minted World Record holder Daiya Seto and last year’s Asian Games MVP Rikako Ikee took to domestic pools.
Competing at the Saita Prefecture Short Course meet in Kawagachi Sity, Seto competed in his hometown pool and stuck around to sign autographs for eager fans afterwards. In what the 24-year-old Olympic medalist described as a ‘reasonable start’, Seto clocked SCM times of 59.41 in the 100 breast, 49.96 in the 100 free and 51.21 in the 100 fly. Considering his 100 fly time this past weekend would have finished 16th at last year’s Short Course World Championships, Seto’s under-heavy-training times were reasonable indeed.
As for 18-year-old Ikee, the star is arriving back from altitude training in Flagstaff, Arizona and raced just days after landing in Japan. The Pan Pacs champion clocked 1:00.41 in a LCM 100 fly race at the Mitsubishi Kozo Sprint meet in Tokyo to kick-off 2019. She described herself as ‘feeling heavy’ and said this race represented merely a baseline from which she’ll go up as the weeks progress.