Olympic Champion Yui Ohashi Takes Women’s 200 Free At Tokyo New Year Meet

2024 TOKYO NEW YEAR MEET

• Saturday, January 6th & Sunday, January 7th
• Tokyo, Japan
• SCM (25m)
• Results

The 2024 Tokyo New Year Meet kicked off today with several big guns in the water to begin their year of racing.

Double Olympic gold medalist Yui Ohashi began her campaign with a victory in the women’s 200m freestyle. The 28-year-old produced a winning time of 1:56.71 to get to the wall first, beating out runner-up Hiroko Makino by just .10.

Makino hit 1:56.81 as while Chiho Mizuguchi represented the only other competitor to get under the 2:00 barrier.

Ohashi’s outing represented a new personal best, shaving .06 off the 1:56.77 she notched nearly 6 years ago at the 2017 Lausanne Swim Cup in Switzerland.

Makino upgraded to gold in the women’s 200m fly, posting a result of 2:05.21 to win by over 2 seconds. That sliced .15 off her previous PB of 2:05.36 also logged at the 2017 Lausanne Swim Cup.

Nao Horomura topped the men’s edition of the 200m fly, hitting 1:53.91 for the victory.

Katsumi Nakamura dove in for the men’s 50m free, putting up a solid performance of 21.85 as the only man under 22 seconds.

29-year-old Nakamura remains Japan’s 2nd-best performer all-time in the sprint, owning a career-quickest mark of 21.16 from 2018. Only national record holder Kosuke Matsui has been swifter with his NR of 20.95 from 2019.

The women’s 400m IM saw 21-year-old Shiho Matsumoto produce a big-time personal best en route to grabbing the gold. Matsumoto touched in 4:30.09, crushing the field by over 12 seconds.

Entering this competition, Matsumoto’s lifetime best rested at the 4:35.56 put up at the 2019 JOC competition. That means the swimmer hacked over 5 seconds off that result to now check-in as 7th-best Japanese performer of all time in this women’s 400m IM. She now ranks 5th in the world on the season.

Matsumoto is a triple bronze medalist at the 2023 World University Games, contributing to podium placements across the women’s 4x100m free, 4x200m free, and 4x100m medley relays in Chengdu, China.

Additional Notes

• Ryo Saitou logged a time of 4:08.96 to take the men’s 400m IM, lowering his previous PB by over 3 seconds in the process.
• Runa Imai topped the women’s 100m breast podium in a result of 1:06.01 to clear the field by over 2 seconds. She also won the 50m free in 24.51 tonight.
• The men’s 100m breast saw Ryuma Koizumi post 58.65 as his first-ever outing under the 59-second barrier.
• Matsumoto registered 58.70 to take the women’s 100m backstroke while Ryota Naito got it done for the men in 51.40. Naito’s PB rests at the 51.18 he earned at the 2021 Japanese SC Championships to represent the nation’s 9th-fastest performer in history.