Good Swimming News: Japan’s Rikako Ikee Is Back In The Water

While the swimming community is being stricken with unfortunate news right and left concerning international meets and Olympic-qualifiers being cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak we are clinging to any good news we can find.

Enter Japanese superstar Rikako Ikee, the 19-year-old who was stricken with leukemia in February of 2019.

Just months after becoming the first-ever Asian Games female MVP, Ikee announced she was diagnosed with leukemia, sidelining her hopes of representing Japan at a home-nation hosted Olympic Games.

Fighting through treatments which the teen described as so terrible she ‘wanted to die’, the freestyle and butterfly sprint ace was ultimately discharged from the hospital in December of 2019.

Already in February of this year, Ikee was already back in the gym, picking up light workouts. Now in March, Ikee’s latest social media post shows the Nippon University student actually in the water.

Translated, Ikee’s message reads, “Finally the permission of the hospital teacher came out and I was able to enter the pool. It seems like a pool for the first time in 406 days! I am so happy, comfortable and happy that I can’t express it in words. New viruses are spreading all over Japan and around the world. I hope that infection prevention and countermeasures, including myself, will be resolved.”

Ikee was reportedly allowed to swim lightly and walk underwater for approximately 30 minutes.

A host of elite international talent has already responded to Ikee’s post, including British swimmers Adam Peaty and James Guy, as well as Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom and Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu.

Ikee will not be competing, but the Japan Swim, which represents the nation’s sole Olympic-qualifying meet, is still on schedule for April 2nd – April 6th.