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

Mireia Belmonte

JAPAN SWIM 2017 (JAPANESE NATIONALS)

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.

2016-2017 LCM WOMEN 200 FLY

MireiaESP
BELMONTE
07/27
2.05.26
2Franziska
HENTKE
GER2.05.3907/27
3Katinka
HOSSZU
HUN2.06.0207/27
4Suzuka
HASEGAWA
JPN2.06.29*WJR04/15
5Yilin
ZHOU
CHN2.06.6307/26
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ERVINFORTHEWIN
6 years ago

Fast time ……

N P
6 years ago

This is an amazing swim from Hasegawa! I’m really happy for her! But I’m also always mystified as to why FINA doesn’t recognize world junior records from prior to April 2014. I don’t understand why they insist on ignoring older times. As far as my knowledge goes, I think Mary T. Meagher would still have this record with 2:05.96.

Swimmer
Reply to  N P
6 years ago

What about Ellen Gandy? I can’t remember the exact timing of her swims, but she was putting up some pretty fast times very young.

N P
Reply to  Swimmer
6 years ago

Ah, yes. You’re right; in 2009 at the age of 17 Gandy went 2:04.83. So that should be the WJR.

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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