66th NATIONAL PUBLIC UNIVERSITY CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Saturday, August 11th & Sunday, August 12th
- Kagoshima Kamoike Park
- LCM
- Results
The 2019 edition of the annual National Public University Championships of Japan took place this weekend, with the nation’s college athletes taking to the Kamoike Park swimming pool.
Just one individual meet record went down over the course of the 2-day competition and it came in a women’s race. Anna Shinno of the University of Tsukuba got it done in the 100m fly, clocking a new lifetime best of 58.79 to take the Championships title.
After establishing herself as the top-seeded swimmer with a morning effort of 59.25, the teen produced dipped under the minute threshold to clock a mark of 58.79 for gold. That was enough to check-in with a shiny new meet record and produce 1 of just 2 sub-minute times of the entire final field.
Runner-up Chiharo Iizuka, also of Tsukuba, hit a time of 58.78 in the morning heats but added a tad in the evening for a time of 59.93 for silver.
Shinno also wrangled up the 200m fly victory in a mark of 2:12.72, touching the wall about 4 seconds ahead of the rest of the field.
Additional winners on the competition included Sakura Yukota nabbing the double IM feat with a time of 2:15.65 in the 200m and 4:46.15 in the 400m. The latter saw Yukota nab the only time of the final under the 5:00 barrier.
For the men, Kotaro Horiai produced the quickest 100m freestyle time, hitting the wall in 50.89, while he earned runner-up status in the 50m free in a time of 23.38. Winning that sprint was Yuu Sai of Osaka City University, who touched just .01 earlier in 23.37 for the victory.
Kenta Akasaka nailed a time of 57.21 to take the 100m back, while also producing a winning time of 2:03.20 to take gold in the 200m distance of the same discipline.
Tatsunari Tasakia was the double IM winner for the men, with the Kanoya University swimmer logging a 200m winning effort of 2:05.17 followed by 4:25.65 to win the 400m IM distance.