2021 TOKYO METRO NEW YEAR MEET
- Saturday, January 9th & Sunday, January 10th
- Tokyo Tatsumi International Swimming Centre
- SCM (25m)
- Entry List (in Japanese)
- SwimSwam Preview
- Results (in Japanese)
Many of the Japanese elite are targeting the 2021 Kosuke Kitajima Cup later this month as their first competition of 2021. As such, the action in Tokyo was subdued on day 1 of the Tokyo Metro New Year Meet.
Day 1 Highlights
Olympian Katsumi Nakamura, for instance, went straight to the competition after his typical training workout earlier in the morning. Instead of competing in his usual bread-and-butter 50m free event, the 26-year-old tried the 50m fly on for size.
Nakamura wound up taking the meet title in a time of 23.14 to kick off his 2021 calendar year. That checks-in as a lifetime best, making Nakamura Japan’s 16th fastest performer all-time in this 50 fly off event.
In that men’s 50m free without Nakamura, it was visiting Spanish swimmer Bruno Ortiz who took the top spot. He registered a time of 22.03. His outing here falls less than a tenth outside the former Michigan Wolverine’s lifetime best of 21.94 from 2015.
Tokyo Frog Kings’ freestyle ace Chihiro Igarashi was also in the water, winning the women’s edition of the 50m free. She clocked a time of 24.58 as the only sub-25 second swimmer of the field.
