Budapest 2022, Day 1 Asia Recap: Olympic Champion Ohashi Misses Final

2022 FINA WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS

• June 18-25, 2022 (pool swimming)
• Budapest, Hungary
• Duna Arena
• LCM (50-meter format)
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The nation of Japan struggled at their home-based Olympic Games last year, save for the double gold medal-winning performances by Yui Ohashi in the women’s IM events. Tomoru Honda also took 200m fly silver for the men, but it was Ohashi who truly rose to the occasion when it counted.

Flash forward to day one here in Budapest and the story is not unfolding the same way, as 26-year-old Ohashi missed out on making the final of the 200m IM.

After registering a time of 2:12.22 to rank 12th out of the heats, Ohashi fell short with a semi-final swim of 2:12.05. That rendered Ohashi in 13th place and out of tomorrow night’s final.

Ohashi clocked a time of 2:08.52 in Tokyo for gold in this event last year and already notched a time of 2:10.70 this past April. She owns a lifetime best of 2:07.91 from the 2017 World Championships when she took silver behind Katinka Hosszu of Hungary. Two years later, Ohashi was disqualified in the 200m IM final in Gwangju.

Ohashi still has the 400m IM on her agenda, entering as the #1 seed with her time of 4:32.08 from when she claimed gold. However, even in the span of a year, new potential medal-winning athletes have bubbled to the surface, mainly in the form of 15-year-old Summer McIntosh of Canada. McIntosh owns the top time in the world with a time of 4:29.12.

National Records

• South Korea: men’s 4×100 free relay – 3:15.68

No medals were won from an Asian swimmer through day 1.