2024 WORLD AQUATIC CHAMPIONSHIPS
- February 11th – February 18th
- Doha, Qatar
- LCM (50m)
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Day three of the 2024 World Aquatic Championships brought us the heats and semi-finals of the men’s 200m butterfly event.
Among the competitors was Japan’s Tomoru Honda, the reigning long course 2fly Olympic silver medalist and short course 2fly World Record holder.
Honda safely captured the 9th seed out of the heats with a morning swim of 1:56.56. He then turned it on more intentionally in the semi-final to score the 2nd seed in a quicker 1:55.20.
Leading the charge was Italy’s Alberto Razzetti who notched a pack-leading 1:55.09 but only after Poland’s Krzysztof Chmielewski was disqualified.
Honda’s performances are solid on their own but considerably so when we consider the 22-year-old is racing with a sprained ankle.
According to Au One, Honda slipped on the stairs in his home on February 5th and sprained his left ankle. He reportedly feels pain when kicking.
After his morning swim, he stated, “My focus was more on my body than on the race.”
Honda owns a lifetime best of 1:52.70 in the LC 200m fly, a time he put up in December 2022 to rank as the 2nd-fastest Japanese swimmer and 5th-swiftest swimmer worldwide in history.
What a tough swimmer!
I hope he wins tomorrow so that that we have another addition to the Walking Boots Mean Nothing club https://swimswam.com/a-history-of-walking-boots-at-swim-meets-and-why-they-apparently-mean-nothing/
I had myself swam with a broken toe and and a burnt hand… The doctor had told me not to swim for a month but I swam within 3 days anyway and when my hand was burnt I used to only kick while keeping my hand out of the water… I’m a national level medalist, not as great as Honda but those r sone of my proudest moments… Go Honda!!!
That is crazy! I hope he recovers promptly.
One of my teammates swam Euro Juniors with a torn ligament in his ankle… And that happened at training camp (playing basketball, what else..?) right before the meet. That was 22 years ago, but I still wince just thinking about it. Backstroker to boot… Those underwater dolphin kicks must have hurt soooo much!
Gotta root for the underdogs! Much respect to Tomoru for not pulling out of the meet.
Ok now we have to root for Tomoru to win. That has to hurt.
Any word on protest from Poland? What a shame to not get both twins in
Sprained ankles can range from very mild to extremely serious. If he feels pain when kicking, I can’t imagine it’s very mild…I hope he gets it healed up soon and does not make things worse. 1:55.20 with a sprained ankle is very good.