The Japanese Swimming Federation (JASF) was dealt another blow this week as storied coach Norimasa Hirai has bowed out as leader of the Japanese squad for next month’s Asian Games.
Hirai has been at the helm of the national team for more than a decade and personally coached the likes of Kosuke Kitajima and Kosuke Hagino in the past. He also served as the Chairman of the JASF until his retirement from the role in 2021.
Yesterday we reported how, after lackluster results at the 2023 World Championships, several athletes took to social media to voice their discontent with the current state of affairs in the upper echelon of elite swimming within the nation.
Chihiro Igarashi and Shinri Shioura were among the athletes who conveyed opinions that the JASF is not putting athletes first, as well as is disregarding requests to participate in overseas racing ahead of Fukuoka.
As for Hirai, he reportedly was absent at a federation meeting immediately following the World Championships. Hirai reportedly does not agree with the JASF on how the Japanese squad can be repaired and strengthened moving forward. In response, the JASF says his absence was ‘problematic’. (Kobe)
The 2023 Asian Games, postponed from last year due to COVID-10 concerns, are scheduled to begin on September 23rd in Hangzhou, China. Japan topped the overall swimming medal table at the last edition in 2018.
However, China is coming off a red-hot World Championships where the nation placed 3rd in the medal table while Japan placed 17th. Big guns Qin Haiyang, Li Bingjie, and Zhang Yufei will do their best to deny Japan a repeat of Jakarta.
There is no word at this time as to who will replace Hirai on Japan’s Asian Games coaching staff.
Japanese swimming these days has essentially gone down the toilet. Remember before about 2022 when they had the next Sarah Sjöström (Rikako Ikee), three IM superstars (Hagino, Seto and Ohashi), and very dominant breaststrokers? What happened to them? Hagino retired, Ikee is struggling currently, Seto is putting down mediocre times, Ohashi has basically been absent from most competitions.
It’s a shame. Hopefully something good happens to save it.
Remember what JASF did to Suzu Chiba? She was ranked number 2 in the world in the 200 free and 3 in the 100 for the year ending 1999 and met the 2000 Olympics standards at their Trials meet despite running a fever so high she had to be hospitalized immediately after. They left her off the Olympic team. A bonafide individual medal hopeful. Apparently, JASF wasn’t happy that she trained abroad (with Bud McAllister, Janet Evans’ former coach), and also wasn’t happy that she said that it didn’t matter that she didn’t hit her PB at the selection meet, what mattered was how she did at the Olympics. She took the case before CAS and they ruled in favor… Read more »
JASF is delusional and decades behind the curve on training and selection methods. One of the nations arguably most successful coaches says something is wrong (clearly there is) and is labeled problematic? Japanese swimming training is outdated and based on success of swimmers over a decade ago besides a few outliers. The world has progressed and yet Japan has remained stagnant. Strict abidance to outdated methods and sticking by things that simply do not work for the sake of tradition is holding their elite swimmers back from success. Spare Matsumoto, no swimmers under 48.8 at trials. Sprinting is dead in Japan. Look outward.
Well pretty much most organisations in Japan, whether bureaucratic or sporting, is run by old, conservative, traditional leaning officials. Even if you don’t account for training, the World’s Cuts at the selection meet is representative of how out of touch they are with the current state of Japan’s swimming ability. They can’t continuously rely on just a few swimmers to lead Japan.