2021 SUMMER CHALLENGE MEET (JPN)
- Saturday, July 3rd & Sunday, July 4th
- Sagamihara Municipal Swimming Pool, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
- LCM (50m)
- Results
A pair of Japanese national relay records bit the dust this weekend, as several Olympians took to the Sagamihara Municipal Swimming Pool waters. With fewer than 20 days remaining until a home-based Olympic Games in Tokyo, the men’s and women’s 4x50m freestyle relay records went down in style.
First, for the men, the foursome of Shinri Shioura, Akira Namba, Kaiya Seki and Katsumi Nakamura collectively stopped the clock in a time of 1:27.48. That shaved nearly a second off of the previous Japanese standard of 1:28.35 that was put on the books in May of 2019 at the Syndey Open Meet.
Splits this time around versus the previous record include the following:
Old Record 1:28.35:
Shinri Shioura, 22.36
Katsumi Nakamura, 21.78
Katsuhiro Matsumoto, 21.80
Kaiya Seki, 22.41
New Record 1:27.48:
Shinri Shioura (22.07)
Akira Namba (21.69)
Kaiya Seki (22.17)
Katsumi Nakamura (21.55)
All four of the new record holders are set to compete at the Olympic Games in the men’s 400m free relay, with Nakamura also taking on the individual 100m free event.
For the women’s relay record this weekend, the combination of Chihiro Igarashi, Rikako Ikee, Natsumi Sakai and Rika Omoto combined to stop the clock in a mark of 1:39.67. This outing overtook the previous national record by well over a second, with that previous result having also been registered at the Sydney Open in May of 2019.
Below are the split comparisons between the old and new women’s records.
Old Record of 1:40.95:
Rika Omoto (25.10)
Tomomi Aoki (25.63)
Rio Shirai (25.56)
Nagisa Ikemoto (25.56)
New Record of 1:39.67:
Chihiro Igarashi (25.11)
Rikako Ikee (24.71)
Natsumi Sakai (25.30)
Rika Omoto (24.55)
As with the men, each of the newly-minted national record-holding women is set to race the 400m free relay in Tokyo just days from now. Sakai and Ikee will also be represented on the medley relay.
For leukemia survivor Ikee, the multi-national record holder and 2018 Asian Games MVP turned 21 today, July 4th, so the record was an appropriate present for the talented star.
There are too many events in Olympic swimming. Olympic swimming should only be freestyle: 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, and 200, 400, and 800 free relays. The WCs and Euros should also get rid of the mixed free relays and replace them with the 200 free relay.
Why?
Are there events in track for running backwards and sideways? No. The Olympics should be about who’s the fastest, and the freestyle/front-crawl is simply the fastest. It simply isn’t fair for other athletes that swimmers and countries that are good at swimming can haul in so many medals.
Athletics does have events for “running fast and jumping over things” and “running fast and jumping over things and sometimes jumping over them into a big puddle” and “running fast and then jumping far not up” and “running fast and then throwing things” and “running fast in a circle vs. running fast on a street” and “walking fast versus running fast.”
Don’t even dignify with a counter comment to silliness like that.
Does anyone know what the fastest 200 relays for long course are?
Think Brazil have been swimming these relays for years.
Tapered? If so bad idea to taper this early when olympics are about to happen.
“Forget the olympics guys. The target meet for this year is the summer challenge meet.”
😭😭😭
If you knew international swimming , you would know they hit out about 6 times a year .
That’s the real meet of the lifetime
USA Olympic trials top 4
21.04
21.48
21.73
21.78
1:26.03 not including aggregated times for relay starts
ResidentSleeper
These relays need to be a thing at worlds