Rikako Ikee of Japan may be changing up her return to racing plans based on meet capacity restrictions now attached to the competition she was targeting for October.
As we reported last month, Ikee said she was targeting the Japan Intercollegiate Championships, an annual meet slated for October, as her monumental first meet back. However, the Japanese Swimming Federation (JASF) has now decided at its latest board meeting that only the top 32-40 fastest athletes will be invited to participate per individual event, with times ranked from April 2019 onward.
Ikee’s last competition was the Yowa Sprint in January of 2019, nearly 19 months ago.
Per Mainichi, Ikee is now considering participating in a match between Nihon University and Chuo University to be held later this month at the Tatsumi International Swimming Center in Tokyo.
Any result would be an inspirational accomplishment for Ikee, as the swimming star is still ramping up her routine after having spent nearly a year in the hospital undergoing treatments for acute lymphocytic leukemia. Just months after having earned the first-ever MVP title at an Asian Games in 2018, Ikee revealed her diagnosis in February of 2019 and was only released from the hospital in December of that year after intense chemotherapy treatments.
Some much needed good news. Best of luck to Rikako; What a story it would be if she came back to medal in Tokyo. Even making it there would be some achievement.
Gold 2021 100 fly?
Silver, Sjöström losing at worlds probably lit a fire to set a nearly unreachable WR in the 100 winning clearly.
I’ll take anyone to knock McKeon off the podium in the women’s 100 meter butterfly at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics:
Ikee – 56.08
Yufei – 56.47
Shkurdai – 56.95
McKeon is one of the nicest, most deserving ,strongest swimmers you could ever meet.
She/He/It doesn’t just hate Minna.
What?
They just hate the Australian team in general.
and prettiest…
No need to ever talk about looks on a sporting website though. It’s completely irrelevant. Plus do you talk about the male swimmers looks? Downvote me all you want. It’s still irrelevant. Especially with another article today talking about eating disorders.