2018 FINA SHORT COURSE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Tuesday, December 11th – Sunday, December 16th
- Hangzhou, China
- Tennis Centre, Hangzhou Olympic & International Expo Center
- SCM (25m)
- Prelims: 9:30 am local, 8:30 pm ET / Finals: 7:00 pm* local, 6:00* am ET
- *The final night of finals will be one hour earlier, starting at 6:00 pm local and 5:00 am ET
- Live Results (Omega)
Japan lowered the Asian Record in the mixed 4×50 free relay in both prelims and finals at the 2018 Short Course World Championships in Hangzhou, first going 1:30.32 in the preliminaries before getting down to 1:29.51 in the final. Their prelim swim broke the previous mark of 1:30.89 set by China at the Beijing stop of the 2013 FINA World Cup.
From prelims to finals all four of the Japanese swimmers got faster, including Katsumi Nakamura going quicker on the lead-off in the final (21.03) than he did with a flying start in the heats (21.05). Lead-offs for mixed relays don’t officially count for records, but Nakamura was faster than the existing Asian Record in the 50 free (21.18 by Masayuki Kishida in 2009).
Kosuke Matsui split 20.90 swimming 2nd, and then Aya Sato (23.62) and Runa Imai (23.96) both got under 24 after splitting 24.00 and 24.07 respectively in the prelims.
Check out the splits on all three of the recent Asian Records in the event below:
| China, 2013 World Cup | Japan, 2018 SC Worlds (Prelims) | Japan, 2018 SC Worlds (Finals) |
| Ning Zetao – 21.35 | Kosuke Matsui – 21.20 | Katsumi Nakamura – 21.03 |
| Shi Yang – 21.35 | Katsumi Nakamura – 21.05 | Kosuke Matsui – 20.90 |
| Qiu Yuhan – 24.18 | Aya Sato – 24.00 | Aya Sato – 23.62 |
| Chen Xinyi – 24.01 | Runa Imai – 24.07 | Runa Imai – 23.96 |
| 1:30.89 | 1:30.32 | 1:29.51 |
The Americans won the gold medal in a new world record of 1:27.89, followed by the Netherlands (1:28.51) and Russia (1:28.73). Japan finished 4th.