89TH JAPAN INTER-HIGH SCHOOL SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Tuesday, August 17th – Friday, August 20th
- Nagano Athletic Park
- LCM (50m)
- Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap
- Results (in Japanese)
On day 3 of these Japan Inter-High School Swimming Championships, we saw some repeat winners on both the women’s and men’s side of the house.
Kotomi Yamagishi doubled up on her 200m fly victory from last night with a win in the 100m fly sprint this evening. Splitting 27.72/31.10, Yamagishi put up a podium-topping effort of 58.82. That mark falls just .3o outside of the national high school record of 58.52.
The men’s 200m back saw Hidekazu Takehara get it done for gold, with his 1:58.08 time adding a gold tonight to his 100m back victory from last night.
Splitting 57.39/1:00.69, Takehara represented the only swimmer in the race to delve into sub-2:00 territory. In fact, his time here beats out the 1:58.60 he posted for 5th place at the Japanese Olympic Trials in April.
The women’s 200m backstroke race wound up being super close, with the top 3 finishers all touching within half a second of one another. Yuki Mizuno got to the wall first in 2:12.39 while Ayami Suzuki was right behind in 2:12.69. Next in line was Tanoko Takeba who nabbed bronze in 2:12.78.
Aisei Matsuda proved too quick for the field in the men’s 100m breaststroke, with the man hitting 1:00.99. Taking the top spot by over half a second, Matsuda destroyed the 1:01.77 he logged for 17th place at the Japan Open just this past June.
With this one swim, Matsuda rockets himself up the best-ever Japanese 100m breaststroke performers list from #88 to now #47. As fast as that performance was for Matsuda, the Japanese High School national record stands at the swift 59.56 Akihiro Yamaguchi put on the books in 2012. Yamaguchi would go on to become the 200m breaststroke World Record holder from 2012 to 2017.
Additional winners included Kotomi Kato reaping gold in the women’s 100m breast in 1:08.52 while Niko Aoki cleared the women’s 800m free pack in a winning effort of 8:42.92.