2024 KONAMI OPEN
- Saturday, February 17th & Sunday, February 18th
- International Swimming Center, Chiba Prefecture
- LCM (50m)
- Meet Central
- SwimSwam Preview
- Day 1 Recap
- Results
While the final day of the 2024 World Championships was wrapping up in Doha, Qatar, with Japanese swimmer Daiya Seto taking the 400m IM bronze, the last day of competition at the 2024 Konami Open was occurring simultaneously.
Both meets represent a final tune-up opportunity ahead of next month’s Japanese Olympic Trials, the sole selection meet for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. The competition is taking place one month earlier than its usual April timeframe.
In Japan this evening, we saw a women’s 200m IM tie between reigning Olympic champion Yui Ohashi and rising domestic rival Shiho Matsumoto.
The pair both touched in a time of 2:10.07 to share the gold while World Junior Championshps gold medalist Mio Narita was right behind in 2:10.11 for silver.
Looking at the Doha results, Ohashi and Matsumoto would have tied for 4th place while Narita would have taken 5th in the final.
The Japanese Swimming Federation (JASF) set a qualification standard of 2:10.70 for the Olympics. This means this trio of competitors is on the right track heading into the Japan Swim next month.
Miyu Namba followed up her 800m free victory from last night with another mid-distance freestyle gold. Namba clocked a time of 4:08.17 to establish a new meet record en route to 400m free gold.
Runner-up Waka Kobori was also under the former meet mark of 4:09.29, getting to the wall in 4:08.56 for silver.
Miki Takahashi earned gold in the women’s 50m back, with her winning effort of 28.11 matching the meet record.
She’s been as fast as 27.84 in her career, a time she posted in the heats of the 2023 World Championships to rank as Japan’s #2 performer in history.
Last night’s 200m breaststroke head-turner Yamato Fukasawa also claimed another medal, topping the men’s 100m breaststroke podium this evening.
He checked in with a result of 59.53 as the sole swimmer of the field to get under the minute mark.
She’s had a rough couple of years with the coaching change, but it seems that she’s finding her groove again right on time. I hope she hasn’t given up on the 400 IM though. I’d love to see her pop the sub 4:30 she’s always had the potential for and end up on the Olympic podium again.