Hasegawa Breaks Jr WR In 200 Fly With World-Leading 2:06.29

JAPAN SWIM 2017 (JAPANESE NATIONALS)

• Thursday, April 13th – Sunday, April 16th, 2017
• NGK Arena, Nagoya, Japan
• Qualification Meet for 2017 World Championships, World University Games and World Junior Championships
• Prelims at 9:30am local/8:30pm (night before) EDT; Finals at 6pm local/5am EDT
• Meet Information
• Entry List (in Japanese)
• JPN Qualifying Time Tiers
• Live Stream
• Live Results

In a banner morning for young butterflyers in Japan, both 200 fly junior world records fell on Saturday of Japanese nationals. Suzuka Hasegawa broke the women’s record with a 2:06.29.

Hasegawa is 17 years old and won’t turn 18 until January of next year. That means she’s got two full years left of eligibility to lower that junior world mark. She was an Olympian for Japan in the 200 fly last summer at 16 and made the semifinals. She was 9th in those semis, and missed the championship final by just a tenth of a second.

In Rio, Hasegawa went 2:07.35 in prelims and 2:07.33 in the semifinals. Her 2:06.29 from Saturday accounts for a huge improvement from those Rio times and breaks the former junior world record of 2:06.51 set by China’s Zhang Yufei at the 2015 World Championships.

She now sits #1 in the world ranks for the season by six tenths of a second. Her time would have been 5th in last year’s Olympic final.