2021 TOKYO OPEN
- Saturday, February 20th & Sunday, February 21st
- Tokyo Tatsumi International Swimming Centre
- LCM (50m)
- Results (in Japanese)
In addition to Rikako Ikee making waves in her first butterfly race since returning to competition, there were a handful of other notable races taking place on day 1 of the 2021 Tokyo Open.
The men’s edition of the 100m fly saw another round of sub-52 second competitors duke it out, this time led by Naoki Mizunuma. After landing lane 4 with a morning swim of 51.67, already a solid start, the 24-year-old got to the wall just over a tenth faster in 51.54 to grab the gold.
Opening in 24.17 and closing in 27.37, Mizunuma’s 51.54 was enough to hold off tonight’s runner-up Takeshi Kawamoto. Kawamoto hit the ground running in a quick opening 50m of 23.95 before backing down slightly to finish only .13 behind Kawamoto.
Both Mizunuma and Kawamoto already rank among the world’s best 100m fliers this season, with the former slotted #5 and the latter in position #4 from their performances at the Tokyo Open.
2020-2021 LCM Men 100 Fly
Dressel
49.45
| 2 | Kristof Milak | HUN | 49.68 | 07/31 |
| 3 | Matthew Temple | AUS | 50.45 | 06/17 |
| 4 | Noe Ponti | SUI | 50.74 | 07/31 |
| 5 | Michael Andrew | USA | 50.80 | 05/14 |
Olympic medalist Daiya Seto was indeed in the water as well, although the 26-year-old dad of two was off his 400m IM performance from earlier this month. Seto posted a morning 4IM time of 4:17.80 to claim the top seed but backed off to a time of 4:20.41 to wind up in 3rd place.
Taking the gold was 21-year-old Yuki Ikari, who fired off a nice 4:12.84 to come within half a second of his own lifetime best.
Ikari is the reigning Summer Universiade (World University Games) gold medalist in this 4IM event, having posted a career-quickest 4:12.54 in Naples in 2019. He’s been dancing around that PB through his first months of racing here in 2021, having already nailed a time of 4:12.91 to rank #4 in the world this season.
2020-2021 LCM Men 400 IM
Foster
4:08.46
| 2 | Daiya Seto | JPN | 4:09.02 | 04/03 |
| 3 | Chase Kalisz | USA | 4:09.09 | 06/13 |
| 4 | Brendon Smith | AUS | 4:09.27 | 07/24 |
| 5 | Lewis Clareburt | NZL | 4:09.49 | 07/24 |
Additional Winners:
- 17-year-old Konosuke Yanagimoto took the men’s 200m free in a time of 1:48.02. The teen phenom turned heads in 2020 when he posted a 2free PB of 1:47.85 at just 16 years of age.
- Chihiro Igarashi was the sole women’s 200m freestyler to dip under 2:00, getting to the wall first in 1:58.25.
- The men’s 50m free saw Katsumi Nakamura get it done for gold in 22.22 while the women’s race was topped by Yayoi Matsumoto and her time of 25.96.
- Kanako Watanabe took the women’s 100m breast in 1:07.78 while Takera Tatsuya wrangled up the men’s top prize in 1:00.26 tonight.
Geeeeez Kawamoto is lookin fine.