2024 TOKYO SENIOR WINTER MEET
- Thursday, February 1st & Friday, February 2nd
- Tokyo, Japan
- SCM (25m)
- Results
While the likes of Tomoru Honda, Katsuhiro Matsumoto, and Nagisa Ikemoto are headed to the World Championships, the 2024 Tokyo Senior Winter Meet concluded today on the Japanese domestic racing scene.
Key Highlights
Competing in short course meters, Kitajima Aquatics’ Kaiya Seki topped the men’s 50m and 100m freestyle events. The 24-year-old Olympian produced a time of 21.67 in the former and 48.23 in the latter.
Seki’s 50m free outing represented a new personal best, overtaking his previous career-quickest 21.73 put up at the 2020 Japanese Short Course Championships. His 100m free PB remains at the 47.37 established in 2017.
On the men’s breaststroke front, University of Tokyo swimmer Kyotaro Matsumoto turned in a time of 58.95 to win the 100m sprint while a trio of men clocked efforts in the 2:07-zone in the 200m.
Ryuichi Ishida wound up at the wall first, grabbing 2breast gold in a time of 2:07.43. The Nihon swimmer got the edge on Toyo’s Shun Kamata who touched .11 later in 2:07.54 for silver and Yudai Nakabayashi rounded out the podium in 2:07.55.
Additional victors included Ryo Takayasu hitting 52.17 for men’s 100m fly gold and Mitsuki Kusano producing 1:56.54 as the 200m fly champion.
The women’s side saw Haruki Yamamoto of Toyo University come away with double gold, beating both the 100m and 200m freestyle fields.
Yamamoto’s 100m free time checked in at 54.73 to complete the job. That overwrote her previous career-swiftest result of 54.84 from 2022.
She topped the 200m free podium in 1:59.35 as the sole sub-2:00 swimmer, slicing .22 off her previous best-ever performance of 1:59.57 from 2019.
Rio Sato won the women’s 200m breast event in 2:27.43 while Shiho Matsuda registered 27.43 as the 50m fly gold medalist.
Speaking of Japanese swimmers, Rikako Ikee posted an Insta story yesterday with Lani Pallister, so it looks like she’s back in Australia training for Olympic Trials! That’s great news! She’s far away from the dumpster fire that is JASF and swimming for a coach who knows how to taper for peak performance.