Continuing on his comeback journey, 2016 Olympic gold medalist Kosuke Hagino of Japan will become a husband and father before the next Olympic Games hosted in his home nation in 2020.
As revealed by Japanese media, Hagino is now engaged to Japanese singer-songwriter miwa, with the wedding expected to take place this fall. Miwa is also expecting the couple’s first child, due this winter. They met in October 2016 while doing television work together.
25-year-old Hagino has had a tumultuous past year in and out of the pool. As we reported, Hagino opted out of both the Japan Swim in April, as well as the Japan Open in May, forfeiting any chance of qualifying for this year’s World Championships.
When Hagino announced his withdrawal from the Japan Swim, the Bridgestone swimmer stated, “I’ve been unable to achieve the results I had hoped for since the 2017 season.
“As the gap between my targets and reality has widened, it has become harder for me to maintain my motivation.”
However, in June, the IM specialist began getting the itch to return to competition and announced his re-commitment to take on Tokyo 2020.
Hagino said of his re-commitment, “This year I experienced extreme depression.” He continued, “The difference between what I wanted to happen and what my actual results were dampened my motivation.”
“Before and after the Japan Swim I stayed in Germany for about 2 weeks and spent a lot of time soul-searching by visiting various places. During that time, my body improved little by little.”
After about a 5-month hiatus from racing, Hagino returned to competition at the FINA World Cup stop in Tokyo on August 3rd where he took bronze in the 200m IM in 2:00.03.
Hagino owns the Japanese National Record in the 200m IM in a time of 1:55.07 – which he swam in 2016 prior to the Olympics. After taking silver in the 200m IM and gold in the 400m IM in Rio, Hagino followed up with 200m IM silver at the 2017 World Championships.
He took the Japanese national title in the 200m IM last year in a mark of 1:57.31 and was successful at the Asian Games as well, reaping silver in both the 200m IM and 400m IM in respective efforts of 1:56.75 and 4:10.30.
In 2019, Hagino got off to a sluggish start, producing a 400m IM prelim time of 4:23.66 in February before bowing out of the rest of the Konami Open, opting to take the aforementioned break to tend to both mental and physical health.
We shall see, yes? Perhaps this is about what is in MKW’s post above.
Great decision!
He followed the footsteps of Daddy Daiya
I hope he gets back to his best. If he does he’ll be right in the mix for gold in both medleys.
Hopefully he can get in top form by next summer. No motivation like having the Olympics in your home country next year to defend your title. The times in both IMs havent been that fast recently.(albeit he hasn’t been either)
If he swims close to his best times, he’ll be back on the podium. His main competitor in the IMs is another Japanese swimmer. He may have peaked back in 2016, but why not shoot for an Olympic medal at a home country Games.
Seto will be favored in both IMs. I think if Kalisz and Hagino regain form it could be pretty interesting. If Litherland is close with 100 to go in the 400 IM you never know…
If you look at personal best times, Kalisz has swim a 4:05.9 while Seto’s best is 4:07.9.
Did Chase give a reason for his 4:15 at the WCs this year? It just looked like he had no competitive fight or just wasn’t ready to swim well that night.
Chase seemed pretty burnt out. Think he said something to the effect that he wasn’t putting emphasis on Worlds and waiting to really taper at Tokyo. Murphy said something similar.
Where did you see / hear all this please? Sources…? Would love to read / see it. TYVM
Ryan Lochte too favourite 200IM
Glad he took the mental health break. Third-fastest performer ever in 2IM LCM. Best to him.
He’ll need it for marriage and fatherhood. lol
Watch out world, Hagino is in love, and as we know a happy swimmer is a fast swimmer! 😊
It sure worked for Seto