2025 KOSUKE KITAJIMA CUP
- Friday, January 24th – Sunday, January 26th
- Tokyo Aquatics Center, Tokyo, Japan
- LCM (50m)
- SwimSwam Preview
- Results
A mishap ruined the flow of action on day one of the 2025 Kosuke Kitajima Cup at Tokyo Aquatics Center.
The backstroke flags were in the incorrect position for the women’s 400m IM final tonight which rendered multiple competitors crashing into the wall or missing their turns entirely due to not being able to accurately count their strokes.
Instead of sitting at 5m from the wall, the flags flew at 2.5m.
Kosuke Kitajima杯の女子400m個人メドレーで5mフラッグの場所を付け間違える大トラブル発生。
数人ターンをミスって壁に激突しました…。 pic.twitter.com/kb71Gmo5PY— 暇なおじさん (@kakkies03) January 24, 2025
According to Chief Referee Takanori Awai, the race started without the referees and officials noticing the mistake.
Per a report in Spinochi, Awai finally noticed when several athletes hit their heads during the 150-meter turn.
“Some athletes hit their heads and suffered whiplash-like conditions. This should never have happened. As far as I know, this has never happened before,” he said. (Spinochi)
The women’s 400m IM will be re-run tomorrow while swimmers in the race were encouraged to go to the hospital to get checked out, even if they didn’t feel any after-effects.
The men’s and women’s 200m back event was contested earlier in the session without incident as was the men’s 400m IM final which took place after the women’s.
Unbelievable mistake! When i read the headline I assumed that they had put the wrong national flag alongside someone’s name and were being bizzarely made to run the race again – this didn’t even cross my mind!
How could that many officials miss the flags being that far off of lining up with the solid red lane lines??
The referee is ultimately responsible, but this is a gross officials screw up!
Shame on officiating in this instance. They are lucky this didn’t result in injury to one of the athletes. This could have ruined a season, or worse resulted in life altering injury for someone.
If multiple swimmers went head first into the wall, it almost certainly did result in some concussions at a minimum. I’m confounded as to how this happens though, were flags not in place for warm up? Also how do the officials look at the distance between the red on the lane line and the placement of the flags and not immediately stop things?
There has to be a cultural thing happening in this situation where the subordinate officials are unwilling to point out a mistake of one of their superiors. We have plenty of incompetent officials in the USA, but I think every one of them would notice and prevent the start of a competition if the flags were 2 1/2 meters out of position.
bro how is this even possible
I had a meet where the flags just fell into the pool mid 200 backstroke when i was in college, thankfully nobody was hurt but it still made me anxious at every turn for a couple of weeks
What on earth