17-Yr-Old Matsushita Rips 4:12.20 LCM 400 IM At South Aussie States

2023 SOUTH AUSTRALIAN STATE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Friday, January 20th – Sunday, January 22nd
• SA Aquatic & Leisure Center
• LCM (50m)
• SwimSwam Preview
• Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap
• Results – Meet Mobile: 2023 SA State Open & MC Championships

The 2023 South Australian State Open Championships wrapped up tonight from down under but not before 24-year-old Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers collected more hardware.

For starters, Chalmers took on an off-event of the men’s 800m freestyle, a distance he hasn’t raced since 2017. He wound up clocking a time of 8:22.93 today to shave over 6 seconds off of his previous result of 8:28.97. He snagged silver tonight, well behind winner Sam Short who got to the wall in a mark of 8:00.93 for the victory.

Chalmers also raced the 50m fly in the evening session, posting a time of 24.11. That edged out Marion teammate and Olympic finalist Matt Temple who touched in 24.24 while 18-year-old William Petric rounded out the top 3 in the only other sub-25 second time of the field in 24.78.

For Short, he went on to log the quickest 200m free time on the night, earning a time of 1:48.38. That held off Maximillian Giuliani, the 19-year-old Miami swimmer who beat Chamers last night in the 100m free. In this 2free, Giuliani punched an effort of 1:48.44 while Temple was also under 1:49 in 1:48.92.

On the women’s front, Meg Harris stopped the clock in a time of 54.91 to handily win the women’s 100m freestyle, adding this gold to her previous open victories in the 50m free, 200m free and 50m fly.

Visiting Japanese teenager Mio Narita was in action as well, doubling up on the women’s 200m IM and 200m back. In the former, Narita scored a time of 2:14.34 to land atop the podium while in the latter she struck gold in a time of 2:13.59.

Narita owns a lifetime best of 2:11.22 in the 200m IM, a result she registered en route to winning the event at this year’s Junior Pan Pacific Championships. It was there in Hawaii where the budding Japanese star also snagged silver in the 2back with a mark of 2:09.67.

Her countrymate of Tomoyuki Matsushita wowed the crowd with a big-time personal best en route to winning the men’s 400m IM this evening. After claiming the gold last night in the 2IM, Matsushita upped the ante with a quick 4:12.20 in this longer event.

Entering this meet Matsushita, who is just 17 years of age, held a 4IM personal best of 4:14.46 from last year. As such, he knocked well over 2 seconds off of that effort to rocket up the all-time Japanese rankings to become the nation’s 8th fastest performer all-time.

Matsushita has had a remarkable progression in this grueling 4IM event. He logged a time of 4:22.51 at last year’s Japanese Championships (World Championships Trials) in April before shaving off a second and a half to check in with a time of 4:21.05 to take the Junior Pan Pacs B-Final.

The following month Matsushita produced a mark of 4:19.84 to grab gold at the 2022 National Sports Festival, while tonight he knocked those previous performances out of the park by crushing this new world-class career-quickest.

The teen now inserts himself into the season’s world rankings in slot #4, surrounded by teammates. Japan owns 7 of the top 10 men’s 400m IM times in the world thus far.

For perspective, among American men aged 17-18, Matsushita’s performance here would rank him as the 2nd fastest ever, sitting only behind World Record holder and the winningest Olympian of all-time Michael Phelps.

Additional Notes

• Brittany Castelluzzo got it done for gold in the women’s 100m fly, hitting 1:00.30.
• The men’s 100m back saw Bradley Woodward touch first in 55.20.
• Riku Yamaguchi of Japan was tonight’s 2breast winner, beating his competitors with a result of 2:15.19.
• Jenna Strauch completed her trio of breaststroke victories at this meet, clocking 31.52 to win the 50m breast.