Former long course 200 breaststroke world record holder Akihiro Yamaguchi of Japan nearly nailed a new Masters world record in his signature event in recent weeks.
On October 14th, the 31-year-old Yamaguchi, a retired swimmer, raced the men’s 200-meter short-course breaststroke, notching a stellar outing of 2:08.29.
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His outing fell just shy of the current World Masters Record of 2:08.12 American Brandon Fischer put on the books in 2023.
From his active days, Yamaguchi’s personal best remains at the 2:03.23 established over a decade ago in 2012.
Yamaguchi set a new LCM 200 breaststroke World Record of 2:07.01 seemingly out of nowhere as a junior in high school. Just 17 at the time, Yamaguchi had taken Junior Pan Pacific Championships gold in the 200m breast event in August 2012, clocking a time of 2:08.03 before crushing his lifetime best and new WR mark of 2:07.01 just a month later.
Since his eye-popping outing, Japan has seen multiple swimmers surpass his mark:
Top 5 Japanese Men’s LCM 200 Breaststroke Performers All-Time
- Shoma Sato – 2:06.40, 2021
- Ippei Watanabe – 2:06.67, 2017
- Shin Ohashi – 2:06.91, 2025
- Akihiro Yamaguchi – 2:07.01, 2012
- Yamato Fukasawa – 2:07.07, 2024
The current men’s long course 200 breaststroke world record is held by China’s Qin Haiyang , who set the monster 2:05.48 at the 2023 World Championships.
I wonder if masters should have separate records for Olympians and world champs.
Maybe they have a rule that there’s a separate record if the swimmer swam in the Olympics/world championships/ or had a world record in the last 4 years.
Then you could see records from elites and normal people.
Maybe he should get a job
A great performance! Unfortunately, Master’s WRs hardly mean anything anymore. Ryan Held, for instance, in 2021 while he was still a professional (full-time athlete and fully paid by USA Swimming and his sponsors) set insane Master’s ‘World Records’ in the middle of his career, and continued as a professional swimmer & medaled in the 2022 World Championships.
What’s to stop Bobby Finke, as a random example, from attending a random Master’s meet & obliterating several records, then just continuing as if nothing happened through 2028, fully paid for?
Master’s is intended to be a forum in which people who have regular occupations & have retired from competitive swimming can have a fair chance to compete with others in the same… Read more »
Yeah I agree with this take. One of the things that is so cool about Masters is being able to race someone like Nathan Adrian who is actually retired as a competitive swimmer but doing it while you’re still on the national team is pretty lame.
Jealous much?
I see where you’re coming from, but honestly I’d love to see the “real” Masters WRs. After a certain age, things should converge, but why shouldn’t Torres or Santos’ times count as the fastest times ever in that age group? Not every masters swimmer holds a full time job, not all of them have the same access to training. To me, a WR should mean you’re the fastest ever in that age group – whether pro or not.
Go ahead – set one …