At the conclusion of the 2023 Japan Swim, the nation’s roster for this summer’s World Championships has been revealed.
The men’s lineup is led by Olympic medalists Tomoru Honda, Daiya Seto and Ryosuke Irie, joined by the likes of Ippei Watanabe, Shinri Shioura and Katsuhiro Matsumoto.
Matsumoto led the charge by claiming 3 titles at the Japan Swim, including posting a new national record in the men’s 100m freestyle. Watanabe made the grade by claiming the 200m breaststroke victory after not competing at last year’s World Championships in Budapest.
As for the women, 22-year-old leukemia surivivor Rikako Ikee stamped her name onto the roster by way of claiming 4 individual titles including the 50m free, 100m free, 50m fly and 100m fly.
Although Oympic champion Yu Ohashi opted out of the 400m IM, she’s set to contest the 200m IM in Fukuoka, pairing up with 16-year-old World Junior champion Mio Narita.
The nation has also selected a handful of relay male and female participants based on their performances this past week.
Japan raced its way to 4 medals at the 2022 World Championships last year in Budapest, with individual medalists represented by Yu Hanaguruma‘s silver in the 200m breast, Naoki Mizunuma‘s silver in the 100m fly, Tomoru Honda‘s bronze in the 200m fly and Daiya Seto‘s bronze in the 200m IM.
Hanguruma fell short of making this year’s World Championships roster, as the aforementioned Watanabe and Shoma Sato will contest the 200m breast this time around.
Men’s Roster
- Individual Events
Shinri Shioura
Katushiro Matsumoto
Ryosuke Irie
Hidekazu Takehara
Daiki Tanagawa
Yuya Hinomoto
Ippei Watanabe
Daiya Seto
Takeshi Kawamoto
Naoki Mizunuma
Tomoru Honda
Teppei Morimoto
So Ogata
Shoma Sato
Relays
- Tomonobu Gomi
- Katsumi Nakamura
- Masahiro Kawane
- Hidenari Mano
- Taikan Tanaka
- Fuyu Yoshida
Women’s Roster
Rikako Ikee
Rio Shirai
Miyu Namba
Waka Kobori
Yukimi Moriyama
Miki Takahashi
Hanane Hironaka
Satomi Suzuki
Reona Aoki
Runa Imai
Ai Soma
Airi Mitsui
Hiroko Makino
Mio Narita
Yui Ohashi
Ageha Tanigawa
Relays
- Nagisa Ikemoto
- Yume Jinno
- Chihiro Igarashi
- Kinoko Mochizuki
Man, Irie needs to be talked about more. He’s been a world class backstroker for over 15 years now.
Glad that Japan went with easier qualifying times for their home meet (OQT, still faster than FINA A times).
Even so, there are swimmers that didn’t make OQT but are on the roster, a good thing to see. It would have been awful marketing to have a smaller roster on home soil
You’d think Rikako would want to put her health issues behind her but it seems Swimswam has christened her ‘Leukemia survivor Rikako Ikee’ for the rest of her career
1) it’s context and 2) it’s her first Worlds team since her comeback
I think I missed something, who are the “Japan raced its way to 4 gold medals at the 2022 World Championships”?
Good catch – 4 medals