2020 TOKYO NEW YEAR’S MEET
- Saturday, January 11th & Sunday, January 12th
- Tatsumi International Swimming Centre
- 25m (SCM)
- Day 1 Recap
- Results (in Japanese)
The 2020 Tokyo New Year’s Meet wrapped up action at Tatsumi International Swimming Centre today, with the likes of Kosuke Hagino, Yui Ohashi and Rio Shirai making more waves in the short course pool.
Yesterday we saw Hagino make his 400m IM return, clocking a solid 4:06.13 to give the new dad the gold and set a baseline in the event in which he took Olympic gold at the Rio Olympic Games.
Today, Hagino warmed up with a bronze in the 100m free in a time of 49.30 before moving on to the backstroke discipline. The 26-year-old took the 200m back title with ease, beating the field by over 4 seconds in a time of 1:52.82.
Splitting 54.71/58.11, Hagino produced an outing within 2 seconds of his lifetime best of 1:51.00 notched at the 2012 Short Course World Championships. This is another good sign that the man is on his way back to form, with the Kosuke Kitajima Cup on the horizon just 2 weeks away.
In the aforementioned 100m free it was Naito Ehara who topped the podium, clocking a winning effort of 48.17 to get to the wall almost a full second ahead of the field. The Asian Games medalist doubled up on the victory with a gold in the 200m free as well, nabbing the top prize in a mark of 1:44.86.
Yesterday, Ehara saw his SCM 400 free national record bite the dust, as Katsuhiro Matsumoto erased the former mark of 3:38.01 with a spicy 3:37.94. You can read more about Matsumoto’s effort in the day 1 recap linked above.
For her part, World Championships medalist Ohashi followed up two personal bests from day 1 with additional hardware tonight. The 24-year-old snagged gold in the 100m fly, stopping the clock in a time of 57.88 to step on top of the podium.
She also produced a silver medal-worthy outing of 2:23.65 for runner-up in the women’s 200m breast. Taking the top prize was Reona Aoki, yesterday’s 100m breaststroke victor.
Aoki followed up her impressive 1:04.15 1breast performance from yesterday with a 2:21.41 podium-topper tonight. She also won the 50m breast in 29.99 to make it a clean sweep of the discipline.
Rio Shirai added the 100m free gold to her 100m back victory form last night. This evening, she split 26.03/27.34 to log a winning time of 53.37, edging out runner-up Runa Imai‘s 53.62.
Shirai owns a personal best of 52.87 in the SCM 100 free event, a time she produced in October of last year. That performance made her the 3rd fastest Japanese performer ever in the event, sitting only behind Miki Uchida and Rikako Ikee.