78th NATIONAL SPORTS FESTIVAL (JPN)

• Saturday, September 14th – Monday, September 16th
• Sunrise Park, Saga Prefecture, Japan
• Meet Central
• LCM (50m)
• Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap
• Results

Day 3 Highlights

The 78th Japanese National Sports Fetival wrapped up tonight from Sunrise Park pool with the final session of action on the more subdued side to what we’ve seen thus far.

However, Ruka Takezawa won the women’s 400m free decisively, putting up a time of 4:11.06 to get to the wall over 5 seconds ahead of the competition.

18-year-old Takezawa was a triple silver medalist at the 2022 World Junior Championships, finishing behind Turkey’s Merve Tuncel in the 400m, 800, and 1500m freestyle events. Takezawa clocked times of 4:11.83, 8:36.80 and 16:24.61, respectively, in Lima, Peru.

The men’s 400m free here saw Kazushi Imafuku get it done for gold, finishing in a result of 3:50.97.

Imafuku turned 17 years of age this past May and is the reigning Junior Pan Pacific Championships gold medalist in the 1500m free from when he notched a 14:59.97 meet record this year in Canberra, Australia.

Yume Jinno earned the women’s 50m freestyle gold in a time of 25.26 ahead of runner-up Mayuka Yamamoto and bronze medalist Ayu Mizoguchi. The former hit 25.41 to touch a hair ahead of the latter who logged 25.44.

As for the men’s 50 m free, Hiroaki Matsui produced the quickest mark in 22.32, just .07 ahead of Koshiro Sakai‘s time of 22.39. Ruyo Shigefuji rounded out the podium in 22.54.